


Steel Trap

by LiveInMyHead



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Series, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 12:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 49,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1779589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveInMyHead/pseuds/LiveInMyHead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Series. Dean is breaking apart inside, drowning in depression. Something evil decides to take advantage of his struggle to push him closer to the edge for their own purposes. It will take the two other Winchesters to pull him back, but will they notice in time? Dean 18/Sam 14.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I wanted to explore the possibility that Dean might have had a mid life crisis at the ripe old age of 18 after so many years of trucking along and doing whatever needs to be done without complaint. And then because I have a sickness and need to beat on him, I had to throw in some evil thing deciding to take advantage. So I know he's a bit OOC, but it was done intentionally.
> 
> Disclaimer - I don't own anything related to the show Supernatural, especially the boys, and man are they glad about that.

_I'm scared to get close and I hate being alone_  
_I long for that feeling to not feel at all_  
_The higher I get, the lower I'll sink_  
_I can't drown my demons, they know how to swim_

_"Can You Feel My Heart" by Bring Me the Horizon_

###### 

When Dean Winchester broke inside, it wasn't something that could be seen by the naked eye. He didn't do it so people would see, it was not a cry for help. He didn't start wearing black and listening to goth music in the darkness of his room. He didn't start cutting into his skin to refocus his pain, his job doing that enough for him.

Like just about every other emotion Dean felt that he thought was weak or shameful, he kept it to himself as much as he could so that it wasn't something that anyone noticed at all. Not at first anyway.

When someone did, it was the wrong someone.

And that is exactly why it happened, because the right ones didn't see it in time.

###### 

They were fighting again.

Dean could hear them shouting at each other, the closed door of his bedroom doing a piss poor job of blocking out the anger and stubbornness pouring out of his brother and father. Sitting on the side of his bed, he could make out every horrible word, every cruel accusation, every desperate attempt to get the other to see reason, no matter how loud he hummed Metallica to himself. He should just put on his headphones and listen to the real thing but he just couldn't make himself move. The fighting was nothing new. Hell, ever since Sam turned fourteen, it was practically every time Dad and Sam were in the same room together.

What was new was that Dean hadn't rushed out to stop them, wasn't trying to physically insert himself between them when his pleas inevitably failed to have any impact. He knew that he should go, he could hear the argument escalating into something increasingly ugly, but he was frozen in place. The ever present feeling of helplessness was still there, the dread that it was inevitable that his family would self destruct if he didn't hold it together, but there was something else there too, something stronger and darker.

Resignation.

Nothing he did made anything better. He was used to screwing things up, how could he not be when he did it constantly, but the one thing he tried to always do right was be a big brother. Dean worked so hard at being everything Sammy needed at any given time, made it his goal to ensure that Sam never went without the love and support Dean did. He didn't want Sam to be like him, he wanted Sam to be a better person, a better man, whatever that meant.

He was failing.

He could hear it in the pain in Sam's voice, the frustration in his words. Sammy needed something, he wanted to be seen, to be heard and he wasn't getting it. Dean was trying, he really was, but he was constantly forced to straddle the line between Dad and Sam to keep the peace, and Sam only saw it as betrayal. If Dean wasn't on Sam's side, then he was on Dad's and being on Dad's side was not going to win any points with Sam.

He didn't see Dean as his hero anymore and Dean didn't know how to deal with that. Because it's all that kept him going sometimes and without it, well it was getting really tough to even get up in the morning.

Dean knew he was all smoke and mirrors, a confident, brash young man on the outside, but inside, he was a fucked up mess. He just didn't realize that Sam knew it, too. If he couldn't even keep the façade up well enough for Sam to buy it, why even bother with it at all? It's not like Dad thought he was anything more than he was, Dad saw right through him, always had. Every bit of praise he managed to wrangle out of the old man was buried and forgotten under demands to do better, a litany of the things he'd done wrong, and disappointed sighs.

Before it would just drive him to try harder. Now, it just made him want to crawl into a hole and disappear because he would never be enough. He was worthless, he didn't bring anything to the table but dead weight.

The door abruptly opening and slamming shut after his little brother yanked him out of his pity party and he lifted his head to see Sam's flushed face and narrowed eyes. Sam threw himself on his bed, his gaze glaring up at the ceiling.

"Thanks for the help, Dean," he bit out.

The bitterness in Sam's tone should have hit him like a punch in the gut, but Dean just turned away and closed his eyes. Of course he was mad at Dean. It was part of the routine now. When Sam and Dad came to an impasse, or worse, when Dad won the fight, Sam would start in on Dean. He didn't blame his little brother. Between him and Dad, Sam had been taught that he was the most important thing, that he was precious. So why should he understand that he couldn't get his way all the time, hell, ever? Join the club, Sammy.

He could hear Sam shifting behind him. Dean knew he should ask Sam what happened, get him to talk about it, try to help smooth it over, but he just didn't feel like it. It wouldn't make any difference anyway. All he would accomplish is making Sam more angry. It should bother him more, this encroaching detachment, but it didn't. It was strangely comforting not to feel everything so sharp, so deep. It was all still there, but it was hazy, like he'd taken a few too many pain meds.

"Seriously, Dean, don't you get tired of him barking orders at us? What am I saying, of course you don't. I swear, I just wanted to go on a camping trip, a simple, stupid camping trip with some friends and I can't. Why? Because God forbid I actually have some fun in the woods instead of trying not to get killed hunting something!" Sam growled in frustration, the sound of his fist hitting the mattress emphasizing his point. "I just hate him sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah, Sammy, I know," Dean replied dully, his eyes finally opening to stare down at his hands. He didn't disagree with Sam and had it been his choice, he would have allowed his brother to go. But it wasn't his choice.

"It's Sam, Dean! How many times do I have to tell you?" Sam shouted, a pillow smacking into Dean's back. Physically, it didn't hurt, but the anger behind it cut enough into the numbness inside him to propel him into motion.

"Sorry, Sam," he said, heading toward the door.

His hand was on the knob when Sam called out. "Dean, where are you going?"

"Out."

"But, I thought maybe you might talk to Dad for me, see if you could get him to change his mind?" Now that anger had turned to pleading. Sam had the most amazing ability to manipulate him, always had, ever since he was two years old, but just like everything else lately, it didn't touch him.

"He might listen to you. He always listens to you," Sam finished, barely audible, but the resentment loud and clear.

Dean would have laughed if he could have felt the irony of that just a bit more. That Sam actually thought that...well it meant he was not paying attention. "You know Dad doesn't listen to anyone, Sammy, least of all me."

"Yes he does! He actually takes your opinion into account, doesn't just tell you to shut up and do as you're told!" Sam fired back, the wheedling tone gone.

With a sigh, Dean dropped his forehead against the door with a dull thunk, wishing he could have done it hard enough to escape this conversation. He just wanted to get out, he needed out.

"Dad doesn't care about what I have to say any more than you do, Sammy." He hadn't meant to say it, didn't want to make this about him, but it was the truth and for once, he wasn't going to keep it buried.

"Dean…" Sam started, but Dean interrupted.

"Look, I get it. You want to be a normal kid, doing normal things. I know. Once upon a time, I wanted that too. But this isn't a Disney film, you aren't the spunky hero that's going to come out on top in the end. This is our life. It sucks out loud and I'm more sorry than I can say that it's this way, but this is it. You'd be a lot better off if you would just accept it."

The silence was deafening. A part of Dean wanted to turn around and see what impact his cruel words had on his brother, to apologize, but the larger part just didn't care. Trying to shelter and reason with Sam didn't work, it had been the biggest mistake he could have made because Dean had created Sam's need to want more. So maybe it was just time to help his brother to see, help him to face up to reality.

"Accept it?" Sam echoed, his voice tight and strained. "Accept it like you? Trade in my brain and free will for a shotgun and a flask of holy water? Yeah, well fuck you, Dean! I'm not going to…"

Sam's tirade was cut off by the door opening, Dean rapidly moving out of it so he didn't have to hear any more about how disgusted Sam was with him, how ashamed.

"Wait, Dean, I'm sorry.." was the last thing he heard before the door shut. He knew Sam was sorry. He knew that Sam would be in there right now, debating whether to run after his brother to apologize or wait for Dean to come back to hear it. Dean also knew he meant every word of it and for a change, he wasn't going to just sit there and take it, or worse, try to get Sam to see sense. It was an exercise in futility and he wasn't up for it right now.

He just needed to get some air, maybe it would help him understand why he was feeling like this, why he wasn't playing the role he'd played his whole life. Why he just wanted to run away.

He just needed to get past Dad.

The eldest Winchester was sitting at the kitchen table, a black glower that Sam had left tightening up his features as he wrote in his journal. He knew Dad was gearing up for a hunt, in the same woods Sammy wanted to go camping in, but he wouldn't have bothered to tell Sam that. No, as far as he was concerned, his sons didn't merit explanation, they just needed to follow his directives like the good soldiers he expected them to be.

He looked up as Dean crossed the room to the front door, the short distance still too far away to make it out without Dad noticing. The scowl lightened slightly when he saw which of his sons it was. Dean stopped and faced his father awkwardly, his eyes somewhere in the vicinity of his Dad's left ear. If he was still in a fighting mood, Dean didn't want to do anything to provoke him.

"You talk to Sammy?" Dad asked. Normally Dean would have calmed Sam down, or at least allowed him to vent and then come out to give a report of how it went. He was expected to keep the peace, it was part of his job. One that he just didn't feel like doing today.

"What would be the point?" Dean asked flatly, already turning toward the door, staring at the knob longingly.

"I know. Teenagers. Glad you missed this stage," Dad said with a sigh, the scrape of the chair on the floor indicating that he had pushed it back slightly.

Dean didn't miss it. He'd just had to hit this stage around six years old due to his accelerated maturing plan and it wasn't as noticeable because he hadn't possessed the vocabulary Sam had now.

"Yeah," Dean replied, moving toward the door, his hand starting to twist it open.

"Where are you going?" Dad asked curiously.

"Out for a walk," Dean replied, the door now open, the cool air beckoning to him.

"Little late, isn't it?" There was something in Dad's tone that normally would have made Dean shrug in agreement, turn back around and shut the door. But not tonight.

"I'm armed and I'm eighteen. I can go out for a walk."

There was no challenge in the words, no defiance, just a simple statement.

"All right. See you when you get back." That was that, no more questions, no more warnings. Dad's instincts were always flawless in regards to everything except Sam and he seemed to know that Dean getting out for a while was the best thing for all of them.

He was finally out, the door shutting with finality behind him. He could almost breathe again.

Almost.

Because he knew, at some point, he would have to go back in.

###### 

She had felt him from within the motel room, felt the delicious angst and despondency rolling out in waves. It had called to her, made her veins pulse with hunger. It was potent enough that she could almost taste it from outside. The meal she had finished up just a few nights ago was gone, and her mouth watered thinking about sucking this new one dry of all that delightful emotion.

Then he had stepped outside and she wasn't sure how she had missed him.

Oh, now he was something special. The other one, the little one, was a fine meal indeed, but this one was a seven course feast of the finest quality that needed to be tasted slowly to savor each flavor. All the feelings battling inside him were darker, deeper, truer than the young one. So much of the little one was anger, an emotion that she could only very slightly feed off of, but this one…such pain, such soul deep depression. The bouquet was amazing; the bitter tang of insignificance, the sharp bite of guilt, a hint of ashy hopelessness.

He would be easy to push, it would be so simple to send him spiraling down until he couldn't bear even one more second of life.

He was almost there already. Then she could feed on all that beautiful misery.

Staring, salivating, at the boy standing outside the motel room, she smiled in anticipation.

###### 

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

_And this is how it looks when I am standing on the edge_  
_And this is how I break apart when I finally hit the ground_  
_And this is how it hurts when I pretend I don't feel any pain_  
_And this is how I disappear when I throw myself away_

_"Breathe Into Me" by Red_

###### 

Dean perused the contents of the duffel bag with only partially focused eyes, knowing he should be more concerned at the way the items within kept jumping around, or blurring into a singular dark mass. He hadn't slept much over the past couple of nights and it was starting to catch up with him. It's not that he wasn't tired, he was almost in pain with exhaustion, but every time he closed his eyes, he could feel the press of the despair, the self loathing, that was filling him more and more every day. It frightened him, the things that ran through his head during those times. He was afraid that if he fell asleep that he would lose himself completely, wake up another Dean that didn't care about anyone or anything. That there would be no way back. It was irrational, didn't make even a smidgeon of sense, but nothing was making sense to him anymore.

He had been hoping things would get better, back to normal, but they seemed to just be getting worse. After he had come back in after Sammy's and Dad's fight over the camping trip, Sam had tried to talk to him, full of apologies and dewy sad eyes. Dean had always accepted Sam's apologies immediately and with good grace, he knew his little brother didn't mean to lash out the way he did, but this time Dean just shrugged and rolled over in his bed, his back to Sammy's crestfallen face. He should have cared, it should have bothered him to no end that he had hurt his brother, but he just couldn't do it this time. No one cared that Dean hurt, no one gave two shits about the fact that he felt hollow inside and was getting emptier every moment.

He could feel himself starting to get overwhelmed by the despair churning in his heart, closing off his throat to make breathing a challenge, and he forced his thoughts back to the bag before it could take over completely.

Knives, guns, ammo, first aid. There were a couple of flasks of holy water and a large plastic container of salt. Black dog was on the menu tonight, so the ammo and knives were silver, with a couple of clips of regular ammo just in case. Everything was in its place, ready to be used against evil.

Dean wished he was as ready, as useful.

"Dean?" Dad called.

Dean's head jerked up at that, his gaze settling on his Dad sitting on the bed loading up his rifle. Dad looked irritated and just a bit concerned. Dean had the idea that he might have called for him more than once and he sighed inwardly at his lack of attention. The last thing he needed was pissing Dad off right before a hunt.

"You all right? I've been talking to you for the past five minutes," Dad grumbled, setting down the rifle and getting to his feet.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dean responded, putting an effort into sounding alive and not like the dead thing he felt like inside. "Just a bit tired." He figured he should offer some excuse.

His eyes dropped back down the bag, but he could still feel Dad's gaze on him. It made him shift uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Dad was really good at not seeing what he didn't want to see and Dean was hoping this would be one of those times. He didn't want to get left behind on this hunt. He wasn't actually looking forward to hunting the black dog that had been preying on people in the forest, but at least it would give him something to focus on, something else besides how fucked up he was.

"You need to get your head in the game, Dean. We could be dealing with several black dogs out there and those bastards don't go quietly. If you can't manage it, you need to say something," Dad demanded.

Dean was well aware of the danger level on this hunt, they had never escaped a black dog hunt without injury, and he knew that his lack of focus and attention would make it even more lethal. Dad wouldn't hesitate to leave him behind, or worse, grab Sammy who was sulking in their bedroom, and drag him along. It would just prove what Dean already knew, that he was useless to everyone around him. He couldn't deal with another disappointed look from his father right now, he really thought it might kill him this time.

"I can manage it, sir," Dean said forcefully, drawing his back up so that he stood straight and looked his father in the eye.

Dad just looked at him for a long moment, and must have liked what he saw, because he nodded once. "All right, but I'm counting on you to tell me if there's a problem, got it?"

If Dean didn't know better, he might have thought that was concern in his Dad's tone, but he knew that Dad just didn't want him to screw up the hunt. That's all he really cared about. Dean was pretty far down the list, if he was even on it at all.

"Yes sir," Dean affirmed, already ducking his head back down to close up the duffel bag. He may have gotten by his Dad that time, but he couldn't take the chance of Dad seeing more than the shaky front Dean had constructed. The less eye contact, the better.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Dad head over to the bedroom, opening the door just enough to peek his head in. "We're leaving. Stay inside, keep the door locked…"

"Don't open it unless I get the password, check the salt lines, stay off the phone. I got it, Dad," he could hear Sam listing out wearily. Still pissed then. Dad had finally told him why he didn't want him in the woods and that just made Sammy flip out again about how he wasn't trusted with even the tiniest bit of information. It went on longer than that, but Dean had tuned the rest out.

"Don't wait up, I don't expect we'll be back for a while and you have school tomorrow," Dad warned. It was Thursday. Dad wanted the black dog taken care of before the camping trip. It didn't mean Sam would get to go, but it would mean that his friends wouldn't end up eaten. Not a bad compromise, or so Dean had thought. Sam didn't agree.

Sam didn't respond and Dad moved away from the door, leaving it ajar for Dean. He would always say goodbye to Sammy, would reassure him that they were coming back, would pick on him or say stupid things to get his little brother to smile away his worry. Dean looked at the space between the door and the wall, could see the end of his bed and knew Sam was sitting just beyond it. The impulse to head over there was strong, but the fear of seeing the hate and anger on Sam's face was stronger. Dean knew he wouldn't be able to put on the act for his brother, he knew that he was going to fail miserably and just make things worse, so it was better to not do anything at all.

Hefting the duffel up over his shoulder, Dean joined his Dad beside the door. Dad looked down at him in confusion, then over to the bedroom, then back at Dean again. "Not going to say goodbye to Sammy?" he asked incredulously.

Dean just shook his head. "It'll just make it worse." Dean didn't clarify what would get worse, he would leave that to his Dad's interpretation, knowing he wouldn't guess that it was Dean's own mental state that he was trying to protect. He couldn't handle another face off with his little brother, he would crack right in two.

He started to head out the door to the car, when Dad's hand on his shoulder stopped him. Dean took a moment to carefully empty out his eyes, then turned back to look at Dad expectantly. Dad was looking at him like he was studying an ancient text, all furrowed brows and frowning mouth. He and Sam shared that same expression when they were thinking hard.

"You sure you're all right?" Dad asked again.

This wouldn't do. He couldn't afford to have Dad wondering if he was going off the deep end, that would just mean making him stay home and Dean couldn't take another minute in that room. Dean pulled upon every bit of his considerable acting ability, and with a smirk and rolled eyes, he replied, "Yeah Dad, I just don't feel like getting bitched at right now. You know how Sammy is when he's menstruating."

Dad's concern and laser sharp gaze changed to his version of parental disapproval, which was a lot more threatening than most parent's version. "You think talking like that is going to help his attitude?"

"No I don't, which is why I'm not going to talk to him right now. I know when I'm not wanted." Dean's voice cracked just a bit on that last statement and he moved quickly out the door, hoping Dad wouldn't notice. He needn't have worried. Dad never noticed.

###### 

Everything had gone wrong. Dean moved in and out of awareness, seeing flashes of light outside the Impala's windows, flooding his bleary eyes to blindness as it washed over him, the distant sounds of other cars passing by only accentuating the loud pants that he couldn't believe were coming from him, Dad yelling at him to stay awake, his dark eyes glaring at him in the rearview mirror. Dean didn't want to stay awake, he wanted to slip into the darkness where he could forget that he screwed up again, where he didn't have to see Dad's frustration at having such a worthless piece of shit at his back, but the pain in his body was bright and sharp. Just when he would start to fall away, slip down into nothing, the car would hit a bump, or Dad would jostle him, sparking his wounds back into screaming agony that forced him back to his hyper alert state so he could think over what had happened on a repeating loop.

There had been two black dogs. Not a strange occurrence by any means, but they hadn't known about the second one until it was going for Dad's throat. The other one was already down, Dad's shot having caught it right between the eyes, when they saw the glowing red lights in the trees. That was their only warning and it hadn't been enough to react. It had launched, Dad's gun raising up, but it would be too slow. Dean shot it, but didn't have the right angle for it to be a kill shot. All the bullet did was make it mad. Dad was on the ground, the beast on top of him, when Dean had kicked it away, aiming again to finish it off.

His grand rescue hadn't gone as planned.

###### 

_Earlier_

_The black dog went for Dean before he could fire, the stinking weight of its body sending Dean crashing back into a tree, his head colliding with a spark of white pain. The gun fell from his hand, all processes in his brain temporarily stopped as it attempted to absorb the impact of his skull on the hard wood. Then he was on the ground, the dog's jaws latched around his forearm that instinct had shoved in front of him, protecting his throat. Its teeth were tearing at his flesh, his clothes providing not even the most minimal of protection, claws digging into him and scraping back as it fought for traction, opening numerous wounds on his torso and thighs._

__

_Dean could feel the hot blood soaking into him, the rancid breath of the creature ripping him open on his face, the pain in his body that was stealing away his ability to fight. His free hand was shoving at the dog, striking it anywhere he could, but it didn't seem to have any impact. He shoved his shredded arm up, levering the dog up slightly so he could try to get to his knife. He wasn't sure where Dad was, or if he was okay, but since he wasn't there, helping him to get free, then that meant he was hurt._

__

_Or maybe it meant he was done dealing with Dean's screw ups._

__

_Since he had told Dean to keep watch for any other black dogs, and he had clearly failed, he was letting him reap the consequences. Maybe he was watching Dean struggle right now, both disgusted and disappointed that his eldest son couldn't manage to take down a single black dog._

__

_Dean wanted to shake those thoughts away, needed to before he lost the will to fight this thing, but when he looked over the beast's shoulder, he didn't see Dad lying on the ground. He didn't see Dad coming over to help him. No, he just saw Dad looking away, walking away. He didn't want to believe it, but there it was. The pain in his body couldn't even begin to compete with the agony of his shattering soul. Dad was leaving him to die. It was all true, he didn't want Dean around anymore, and this was the most expedient way to do it._

__

_Tears that even his wounds couldn't create started to flow down his temples, soaking into the ground below him. The dog was forgotten, the claws and teeth no longer felt. There was no point in caring about it anymore, there was no point in fighting it. His Dad didn't want him, Sammy was getting to the point where he didn't want anyone, much less his stupid and blindly obedient brother. He had served his purpose for his family and now he was just grasping at the crumbling foundations of his entire purpose in life, trying to bail out a sinking ship with a shot glass. He was the reason they were falling apart, it was all on him because he wasn't enough for them anymore, if he had ever been._

__

_His Dad was right. Might as well just die, save everyone a lot of trouble. He would miss them, and it killed him to think he hadn't even said goodbye to Sammy this time, hadn't seen his precious face one last time, but he knew that without his suffocating presence that Sam would grow and shine, be the better man that Dean had always wanted him to be._

__

_It wasn't a conscious decision that made Dean go limp below the black dog, it was as if the darkness spreading inside him from his bleeding heart had sapped all his will, but he did choose not to fight it. It would be better this way. It didn't even hurt. His eyes drifted up to the star drenched sky above him, the little dots of light cold, but comforting. At least he could see something beautiful as he died. As the dog released his arm, the numbed limb falling across his chest, Dean noted the Big Dipper, his gaze wandering away to find the Little Dipper. The dog lunged forward again, its teeth now sinking into the space between his neck and shoulder, jerking his still body over the ground as it shook its head to rip and tear at the flesh. Dean was distantly aware of a new flare of pain, vaguely felt the spray of his blood on his cold face, but it was as far away as those stars._

__

_Then his eyes were closing, the stars now behind his eyelids. He could feel the pressure of the dog worrying at his body, the heaviness of it on his chest making his stuttering breath falter all the more, but there was no pain anymore, just a fuzzy sensation of floating. He thought he heard his Dad screaming his name, but he knew it was just wishful thinking, the last dying bit of hope in him firing up for a last gasp of air. It was pathetic, that hope, just like him. He couldn't stand himself anymore._

__

_Dean let go._

###### 

__

Lying there in the backseat, there was no recollection of how he had ended up in the car or how long they had been driving. Dean only knew that Dad hadn't left him there to bleed to death for whatever reason, but he still kind of wished that he had. Maybe later it would terrify him that he had given up, that he had just laid back to let death take him, but right now, it just felt like a missed opportunity. He could only imagine what Dad was going to say about his performance and he would give just about anything not to hear it. 

Dad was talking to him again, but Dean couldn't make out the words. He was starting to drift again, but this time it was stronger, less hazy around the edges. It was darkness, sinking and heavy. He was so cold, the blood all over his clothes the texture and temperature of melted ice cream. He was tired, bone deep and trembling. He was sick to death of seeing Dad's disapproving eyes in the rear view mirror. 

__

He let go again, this time not paying any attention to Dad shouting at him from the front seat or the harsh hands grabbing at him. 

__

###### 

TBC...


	3. Chapter 3

_Why are you here? Are you listening?_  
_Can you hear what I am saying?_  
_I am not here, I'm not listening_  
_I'm in my head and I'm spinning_

_"Fallen" by 30 Seconds to Mars_

###### 

She heard the car first, the low and mean grumble she was used to throttled into a furious roar as it screamed into the parking lot in a spray of gravel. She peeked out from her window from the room she had taken next to her target to see what had caused such urgency, but she felt it before her eyes actually saw it.

It was _him_ and he was injured.

The older man, she figured their father, was driving and looked a wreck, his movements quick and hurried as he parked the car haphazardly in front of the room. He felt even worse. All the emotions emanating from him tasted of fear, guilt, and panic. It was nice and thick on her tongue, but couldn't compare to what was coming off the boy she couldn't see, but knew was in the backseat. She could tell he was unconscious and could smell the blood coating his skin, but he was hemorrhaging and broken in ways that had nothing to do with his injuries. Even though he was out cold, the feelings pouring out of him were violent and intense. For a moment, she was dismayed that his body was so damaged, threatening her chance to taste his devastated soul, but the rhythm of his heart didn't sing of death, his gasping breaths just enough to keep him alive.

No reason to worry then, she would still have her chance.

Since she had found him, she had waited, salivating at the aromas he continued to give off, like a hungry family waiting for their dinner to finish in the oven. She liked to let it build, enjoyed delaying the start of her meal, especially when one was so close to being perfectly prepared anyway. She was grateful now that she had waited. If she had already started to feed off of him, no doubt he would not have the will to stay alive now and she desperately wanted to take her time with this one.

He was hurt now, too weakened for her to pounce, but she was patient. There was a faint sensation of hunger just tapping along her nerve endings, but it just added flavor to her palate. She would wait, not long, but enough for his body to heal.

Then he would be hers.

###### 

Pain brought him back harshly, his eyes flying open as the spikes of agony radiating from the pressure up by his neck shot through his body, stealing away the blanket of oblivion that had been covering him so nicely. Dean screamed out hoarsely as he realized the pain was actually all over his body, dazed eyes seeing nothing but overly bright lights and fuzzy shapes above him. Terror rose up in him as one of those shapes leaned closer, the pain in his neck and shoulder increasing with its movement. He tried to pull away, and when that didn't work, he attempted to raise his arms to take a swing at whatever was hurting him, but his arms were leaden and hard to move.

"Dean! Calm it down!"

The sharp command settled him almost immediately, the voice and the authority it contained recognized even through the muddled fog coating his mind. With his body relaxing, his vision started to clear, the big shape turning into his father standing over him. He was laying on Dad's bed, a quick downward flick of his eyes revealing scraped and bloody skin, his body bare except for his boxers. He briefly wondered why Dad hadn't deposited him on his own bed, but was distracted by the sight of Dad's bloodied hands out of the corner of his eye and he turned his head slightly to see what they were doing there. He saw them pressing down on an equally bloody towel that was covering the area above his collarbone. For a moment, he was simply confused, trying to understand why Dad would put a bloody towel on him and then the synapses started to fire again and he began to remember. He had to work his way back through the night, the flashes of memory that came to him first were from the car ride back, finally arriving to how he ended up this way.

He had basically tried to commit suicide by black dog and in typical Dean fashion, he had failed.

Dean let his head turn back so he didn't have to see his Dad trying to stop the blood, didn't have to watch him try to save his worthless life. He wasn't sure why Dad was doing it at all, he had walked away from him in the woods, had left him, so why bother to save him? He let his eyes close again, letting the pain swallow him back up. The pressure Dad was putting on the bite was excruciating, almost drowning out the throbbing in his arm, the stinging of the cuts and scrapes on his torso. It hadn't hurt this bad when it was happening, he guessed that giving up was an excellent pain killer.

"Dean? Dean, can you hear me?"

Sam's panicked and trembling voice hurt more than any of his wounds. Sammy was seeing all this, in fact, he was pretty sure that's who was tending to his torn arm. Once again, he'd caused his brother distress because of his own screw up. He wasn't sure he truly meant to die out in the woods tonight, but he hadn't been adverse to it. It would have been better than dealing with this, his family having to tend to him, get their clothes filthy with his blood, spend their night stitching and bandaging. He couldn't even manage to off himself correctly.

Sam was calling for him again, the sound of tears thick in his voice. It stole what air was left in Dean's lungs, hearing the pain in in Sammy's voice. Dean wanted to respond, wanted to open his eyes and bask in his little brother's concern, pretend it was all out of love and not just pity, but he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He simply didn't have the energy. He'd done more than just face that black dog, he'd also faced himself and didn't like what looked back.

So instead of answering Sam's tremulous plea, he just sank further into the pillows, the pain and stress from his injuries having pushed his body past exhaustion. He could fight it, had fought through worse, could sit up right now and push everyone away, insist that he was fine, but he wasn't fine this time. Something had fallen apart inside of him and he couldn't put his mask on over it. The broken pieces that made Dean who he was were too sharp and jagged, it would all just poke through. It was better to just stay down, stay quiet.

"Sammy, go grab the thread so I can get this closed up," Dad called out.

"Dad, I told you, he needs to go to the hospital! He's lost too much blood for us to just close him up and cross our fingers that he has enough left in him to keep his heart beating. Not this time," Sam fired back, frustration clear in his voice. Apparently, they'd had a discussion about this before Dean woke up.

"Sam, just do what I said," Dad ordered impatiently, his voice harsh and close to Dean's ear, hands pressing down even harder for a brief second. Dean must have made some movement, because he said softly, "It's gonna be okay, son."

"No! Hospital, Dad! It's not like you haven't screwed over a few hospitals in your time to piece your broken soldiers back together, what's one more?" Sam spat out furiously.

Dean just wanted to go away, curl up so small that he just ceased to be. They were fighting again, over him _again_ , and he wasn't going to be able to stop it AGAIN. He could feel tears starting to well up in his eyes and he gritted his teeth in frustrated embarrassment. When had he become such a girl, crying at every little thing? Next thing he knew he was going to be watching soap operas and drinking light beer. He just wanted this to stop.

"Sam, is this really the time for this? Is it? Your brother needs you to focus and follow your orders, not sit here and back talk me." Dean could hear the warning in Dad's voice, the one that said he was close to the line of what he would tolerate. Dean could always recognize it immediately and knew to back off. Sam recognized it too, but lately, he seemed to take perverse pleasure in sending Dad vaulting over that line.

"You have no idea what Dean needs, nor do you care! Dean _needs_ a hospital! Dean _needs_ medical care! Dean _needs_ a father that gives a shit! Look at him! Look at what your mission has done to him, Dad! Where were you when he was being torn apart, huh? What, did you use him for bait? Did you throw him to the dog or just throw him in front of you?" Sam yelled.

Holy shit, Sam had lost it. Dad was going to kill him.

Dean felt the pressure on his shoulder and neck disappear and he knew what that meant. Dad had exploded and it was about to become a war zone in that room. Dad had never given either of them more than a swat on the ass or back of the head outside of sparring and a singular incident that Dean had more than deserved, but Sammy seemed determined to change that tonight. Dean felt something in him that had been missing for a couple of weeks now; the need to do something, even it would be pointless in the end. He didn't realize until now that he had missed it.

He pried his sticky eyes open to see Dad grasping Sam's shirt by the collar, Sam staring up at him with defiant eyes, chin thrust forward in challenge. Dad's cheeks were flushed red with rage, his tight lipped mouth twisted and sneering, his breathing heavy and rushed. Dean knew that they were on the tipping point of something truly awful happening and he couldn't let it. He had caused this to happen, he had to put some effort into stopping it.

Trying to lever himself upright set all the wounds in his body alight with liquid fire and biting teeth, the pervasive weakness that only blood loss could give a person making it harder to make his trembling muscles obey him. He came up as far as he could and rested on the elbow of his good arm, leaning heavily over it.

"Stop it," Dean gasped out. It was barely over a whisper and went unnoticed by the two combatants standing across from him. He could feel hot blood starting to trickle down his chest and back again from the wound near his neck.

"You are not going to talk to me like that, Samuel! Not ever! You boys mean everything to me. When you are hurt, I hurt," Dad bit out shaking Sam slightly. Dad was obviously trying to reclaim something that might resemble reason and calm before he lost it completely, but it looked like he was losing the fight with himself.

"Please stop," Dean tried again, the fear growing within him that one of them was going to say something unforgiveable and there would be no going back. It was louder this time, but it was still lost in the angry bull like breathing of Sam and Dad.

"Yeah, right," Sam snorted. "We don't mean anything to you. We're just cannon fodder, bodies for you to step over on your way to get revenge. You won't be happy until we're cold in the ground so you can say you gave everything you had to avenge a dead woman."

Dad snapped, his hand flying back. Dean saw it in slow motion, slow enough to see exactly what it would do when it hit Sam and it wasn't the physical pain that would destroy them all, it would be the betrayal.

"No!" Dean shouted, loud and booming, surprising even himself, vaulting out of the bed the second he saw Dad's hand go back, the pain and fatigue driven away by desperation and horror. He didn't know how he got in between them, but he was there, facing Dad, shoving his good arm into Dad's chest to thrust him back. There was no strength behind it, but Dad moved anyway, his furious face crumpling into revulsion and disgust at what he'd been about to do.

For a moment, there were no angry words, no accusations, only their breathing, harsh and heated in the silence. No one seemed inclined to break into that quiet, no one met anyone's eyes. In the end it was Dean's body that did it for them, his burst of adrenaline fueled energy leaving him as quickly as it came. His knees buckled, and he was heading to the floor when Dad wrapped his arms around his waist, wrapping over Sam's who had done the same thing.

There was no argument or discussion now, just both of them working to get Dean back on the bed as carefully as they could. Dean could see the shame in Dad's carefully lowered eyes, the shock of what he had almost done draining all the color from his skin. Dean sympathized, he really did. That crack Sam had made about their mother would have made him want to smack him too, but it would have broken what little relationship that remained between Dad and his youngest and Dad seemed to be very aware of that.

Once back on the bed, Dean's gaze immediately fell onto his little brother. He noted that the same expression Dad wore written all over Sam's young face; shame, apology, uncertainty. They were just too alike. Both kept pushing, expecting the other to give in and neither one would. It was an endless stalemate and the older Sam got, the less his respect for and fear of Dad and his authority held his tongue.

Unlike Dad, though, Sam's eyes did meet his and the regret and contrition there made Dean sigh. Sammy had gone too far, as teenagers are pretty much coded to do, but it wasn't his fault. If Dean hadn't gotten himself hurt again, or at least had finished the job, this would have never happened. He liked to think that his death would bring them closer, but he knew it wouldn't be the first reaction. This confrontation, like so many others, made it clear that blame would be the first thing they would feel, not grief.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said about Mom," Sam muttered quietly, said loud enough that Dad could hear him, but only looking at Dean.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have said it," Dean replied wearily. Sam's head bowed down, nodding slightly. Dean figured Dad would say something provoking to start it all up again, but Dad surprised him, reaching across to rest a hand on Sam's head briefly.

"I know, kiddo," Dad assured him softly, finally looking at his youngest.

Dean felt a light burst open in the darkness in his mind, but it stuttered out before it could take hold. This had happened before. It happened all the time. They would blow up at each other, completely lose their shit and bitch back and forth until Dean talked them down, then things would be okay for a while. They would expel their anger and frustration to clear the air and everything seemed to be fine until it started all over again. This didn't mean anything was fixed, it was exactly the opposite. It was just more of the same leading up to the final confrontation, the time when the air didn't clear, when it all imploded.

"Dean, tell me honestly now, do you think you need to go to the hospital?" Dad asked, turning his attention back to him.

Dean wanted to say yes, if only to get away from his family for a while, have some time to try and get his head on straight, but going to the hospital wasn't something the Winchesters took lightly. It usually preceded a quick move before their fake insurance was discovered or before people started asking questions they couldn't answer easily enough. Dean could use a change of scenery, but didn't want to add the stress of dealing with Sam's bitching about it. Yes, he hurt and yes, he had clearly lost some blood, but Dad and Sam could do stitches just as good he would get in the hospital with a lot less questions and poking and prodding. Sleep and some juice would take care of the blood loss.

"I'm good, you can take care of it," he answered finally.

Sammy opened his mouth to argue, but what he saw in the look Dean threw him silenced him, his mouth shutting with an audible clack of teeth. Dean wasn't sure what Sam had seen, but he knew what he was feeling; tired, fed up and done.

Dean retreated back into his numb place, his eyes shutting firmly. Tonight had been a disaster. Dean had screwed up the hunt, let Dad get jumped and then turned around and nearly got himself killed, tried to get himself killed. That thought was terrifying because of how disappointed he was that it hadn't worked. He just wanted to do the right thing by his family and he wasn't sure living was it. Wasn't this latest argument proof? Dean didn't want to die, not really, he just didn't want to be a burden and he knew without any doubt that he could not make it alone. He'd been raised to live for his family, it's all he knew, how the hell was he supposed to do anything else now that they didn't need him anymore?

He could hear Dad calling out orders to Sam to get the various actual and makeshift medical supplies, but it was barely more than white noise. Dad prodded at him with something that turned out to be a whiskey bottle when he took a look. He shook his head, preferring to feel the discomfort and consequences of his decision that night. Dad started to argue, but Dean just let his eyes close again and tuned him out. He could feel them poking at him, stitching his body back together and it hurt, but it didn't really matter. Dean already hurt so much anyway, what were a few stitches?

Eventually, he escaped into sleep, unaware of the two worried and confused members of his family staring down at him.

###### 

TBC...


	4. Chapter 4

_Am I worthless?_  
_Am I filthy?_  
_Am I too far gone for a remedy?_  
_Will you help me?_  
_Cause I'm dying_  
_To be something more than a memory_  
_If I reach out_  
_Can I trust you?_  
_Will you help me see the light of one more day?_  
_Take the bullets away_

_"Take the Bullets Away" by We As Human_

###### 

When Dean woke again, the first thing he became aware of was his Dad staring at him from the chair by the window in Dad's room, his face little more than a shadow, his form outlined by the sun brightened curtains behind him. Even though he couldn't see Dad's eyes, he could feel them, heavy and analyzing, finding him as lacking as Dean himself did, or so he could only assume. Dad stood then and headed towards him, the shadows dropping away to reveal a visage Dean did not expect; tired, strained, and, shockingly, worried. For a moment, all Dean felt was confusion, not expecting anything but disappointment and irritation to be pouring out from Dad's eyes, but that wasn't the emotion that he saw there. Then the panic set in as he identified what he was seeing; intent. That meant there was a talk imminent, and no matter what it was about, Dean didn't want to have it, but it was too late to play dead now. He would just have to face it and hope that he could hold it together long enough to get through it.

"How you doing?" Dad asked quietly, sitting gingerly on the side of the bed.

Now that Dean had to think about it, it seemed that all his aches and pains decided to make themselves known. The worst was the wound above his collarbone, it felt hot and achy, followed up by the wound in his arm. The scratches along his front were just irritants, not even worth mentioning. He had a hell of a headache too, but that was probably just the groovy combination of smacking his head and blood loss. Generally, he just felt drained and would like nothing more than to go back to sleep, but he could already tell that wasn't going to happen. Dad had the look of someone that had been chewing on something for a while and he wasn't going to wait another second to spit it out.

So he just shrugged with his good side and dropped his eyes down to escape the weight of Dad's gaze.

"Sam at school?" Dean asked, more as a way of distraction than anything else, studying the bandages on his arm idly.

"He's sleeping. We were up pretty late," Dad explained. Dean cringed at the statement, hearing the accusation and imagining how pissed Sam must be that he had missed school to tend to his fuck up brother.

"You want to tell me what happened out there, Dean?" Dad asked after a moment of silence, his voice still soft and quiet, but the order was there at its core.

No, Dean really did not want to tell him, especially not the truth. He was in no condition to manufacture a good lie, his brain felt slow and mushy, and there really was no telling what his Dad had seen. Yes, Dean had seen him walking away, but at some point his Dad had turned around and come back. Who knew what he had seen? Maybe he had seen Dean just stop fighting, maybe he had seen Dean just lie back to die. Beneath the mortification that thought caused him, there was something else there, something small and tiny, but screaming that _his Dad had come back_. Maybe that meant something. Maybe it even meant that Dad cared.

"Dean?" Dad prompted, a bit of the softness leeching out and making it a command. Dean risked a quick glance upward and could see the warning written all over Dad's face. The fact that Dad was asking meant that he had caught something he didn't like, but he wasn't giving Dean any clue as to what that was. He was being given just enough rope; it was up to him to decide if it was to pull him to safety or hang him.

"I fucked up, that's what happened," Dean breathed out, hoping that might be enough. Dad's exasperated sigh told him clearly that it wasn't. Dean had never gotten away with that on his best days, he wasn't surprised it had failed now. Well, nothing to be done for it, he just had to wing it.

"When the dog took you down, I didn't have a good shot, so I took what I had," Dean started dully, mentally sorting through the events and trying to stick to the truth when he could. "It went after me and knocked me into a tree. I lost my gun, not sure how that happened. Guess it was just the impact. I was on the ground and I put my arm in front of me to keep it away. I, uh….,"

Yeah, this where things were going to get a bit sticky.

"I guess the tree got my head a little more than I had thought, because I just couldn't hold it off anymore. Then it was trying to eat me, shoulder first. That's pretty much it, I didn't wake up again until we were in the car," Dean finished, working to keep his features smooth and guileless under Dad's steady gaze. He thought the explanation was credible, if he had been fighting off unconsciousness, then his limbs would have been clumsy and weakened. It was perfectly plausible that he had simply been unable to hold off a hundred plus pound dog for very long in his injured state.

Maybe Dad wouldn't remember that hunt last year where very nearly the same thing had happened and Dean had managed to fend it off and kill it, even with a severe concussion.

"You sure about that?" Dad asked, no mistaking the steel in his tone now.

Shit.

"Yes sir," Dean replied, bracing himself for the avalanche that was pissed off Dad that was about to bury him.

"That's not what I saw, Dean. In fact, I saw something I thought I would never see. I saw my son give up."

Dean felt his stomach plummet into his toes, could actually feel the blood drain out of his face, the headache escalating to a pulsing that actually seemed to have sound in his head. He had been worried about this, but to hear it confirmed, to have to look at Dad knowing that he now had proof of Dean's weakness, of his debilitating failure, was too much for him to handle. All thoughts of maintaining his façade were gone, swept away in the flood of panic and fear. He just needed to get away, get out from under Dad's all seeing eyes, and hide until he could pull himself back. If he could pull himself back.

Sitting up in the bed in a sudden burst of movement made his injuries scream back to life, but Dean ignored the pain, needing to tend to his collapsing psyche more. He had one leg out of the bed and was about to pull himself up, when strong hands clasped on the few parts of his arms that were not injured to push him back down. Dean fought against those hands, knew that he couldn't face this right now, not when he was torn open and shell shocked, there would be no hiding his inner wounds beneath a cocky smile and sarcasm. He was busted apart, vulnerable, and he had never been more terrified in his entire life.

"Dean, dammit, settle down!" Dad barked out, standing now to get better leverage to hold Dean down.

The order wasn't enough this time, it only escalated Dean's desperation to gain his freedom, no matter what that meant. Maybe the pain jolting through his body would make him pass out, or maybe he would tear enough stitches that blood loss would do it for him. Whatever, he just needed to get away from Dad. If he didn't, he was going to be forced to lay everything bare, tell Dad everything, because he didn't have the strength to hide it away and he couldn't deal with that, he just couldn't.

Dean bucked and heaved, twisted and pulled, but Dad wasn't letting up. In the end, Dean's body betrayed him, the energy created out of his intense need to run fading away into nothing, leaving him exhausted and bereft on the tossed sheets and blankets. He could feel tears starting to gather in his eyes and he would have laughed if he hadn't lost all his ability to find anything funny. Of course, he would cry now, just when he needed to present a strong front. Everything was against him today.

In defeat, he looked up at Dad then, and was immediately taken aback by the fear making the lines of Dad's face stand out in stark relief.

"Dean, what the hell is going on with you?" Dad rasped, his voice strained and tight like he was the one trying not to cry.

Dean didn't know what to say. How did he explain to Dad that he was spiraling down with nothing at the end of the tunnel but darkness? How was he supposed to say that he knew how little his family needed him now and that he was finally realizing that he would never be good enough to get them to need him again? How did he make him understand that Dean was pretty sure he didn't exist outside of being a brother and a son? That he was afraid that if his family finally turned their backs on him, he would just disappear, cease to be?

He couldn't. He simply couldn't say any of those things. So the truth was out.

"Nothing, I'm fine. What you saw…what you think you saw isn't what happened," Dean responded hollowly, his voice almost seeming to echo through the emptiness inside him.

Dad was on his knees in an abrupt movement, Dean's uncertain and surprised eyes meeting his, noting with discomfort that they were almost on the same level. Dad looked so concerned, so tentative and it was such a far cry from his normally confident and steady father that Dean felt those damned tears coming back. He was causing this. Just like he had frightened Sammy so much that he snapped and almost caused a hellacious fight, he was wearing Dad down, too.

"I think that is what happened, Dean, and I want to know why. Something has been off about you for weeks. You're slipping away and I don't understand why. You're like a ghost around here. You don't talk, you don't laugh, you don't even get pissed off and that's not normal. Talk to me, son. Tell me what is going on so I can help you fix it. We need you back. Please," Dad pleaded, one hand reaching out to grasp Dean's.

For a moment, Dean was frozen, unable to believe what was happening before him. Dad was begging him to let him help. For a moment, he was terrified to believe it, thought it might be a trick, but Dad wasn't that good of an actor. He was genuinely worried about him. Dad had seen his distress, Dad had noticed. Dean had been so sure that he'd had it hidden and that even if he didn't, Dad was too buried in the hunt to care, but he had been wrong. Dad did care. It wasn't just because he'd messed up on the hunt or that he'd put Dad's life in danger, he'd noticed that _Dean_ was missing. The things that made him who he was and he needed him back.

And really, that's all Dean wanted.

The awful tension inside him started to relax, letting some of the unhappiness melt away. He started to allow himself to find the person he was before he hit this rut, that man filled with appalled shock that he had ever let it happen at all. This time when the tears came, he didn't fight them because they weren't born of misery or despair, they were tears of hope, of healing. Dad just looked more wrecked at the sight of them, but Dean smiled along with them, a real one, not the shadow of it that he'd try to pass off as genuine. Dad smiled back, his own eyes suspiciously glossy.

"You know, I'm really okay," Dean said in what could only be described as wonderment because for the first time in a long time, Dean meant it.

"You sure?" Dad asked carefully. He seemed reluctant to accept Dean's answer, and Dean couldn't blame him, but he couldn't explain why he was sure without explaining everything else, and had no intention of ever doing that.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Now let's knock this off before we both grow chick parts, okay?" Dean rolled his eyes and gave Dad's hand a squeeze before pulling it away. Dad laughed and nodded, relief pouring off of him.

Dean knew he wasn't fixed completely, but he had a foundation again, something to build his walls back up on and leave all this crap buried within. It would take time, but he at least felt as if it could actually be done now. He still knew things had changed, that his family was growing apart, but he felt like he would get the strength back to fight for it again. He still had to deal with Sammy, but with the clarity he had found after Dad's words, he could see that he had been taking everything his little brother did and said in the worst possible context, assuming that Sam found him as useless as he himself did and it was neither true nor fair to Sam. As soon as he woke up, he was going to have a talk with Sam, try and put them back on solid ground, repair what he had broken.

Dad stood, knees popping as they straightened. "I'll let you get back to sleep then. Sammy will be up soon and you know he'll be hovering over you like a new mother." He turned to head out of the room.

"Dad?" Dean called out.

He turned back, an eyebrow raised in question.

"Thanks," Dean said softly. Somehow, Dad had said exactly what needed to be said and brought him out of his funk. And even better, he hadn't kept asking questions, he took him at his word. That would be Sammy's job, but he had some time to prepare for it.

For a moment, Dad looked all haggard and sad again for some reason, but it cleared quickly. "You got it, kiddo." He left the room then, the door shutting softly after him.

Dean rested back on the bed, more relaxed and centered than he could remember being in recent memory. He may be injured, tired and still bruised inside, but he felt pretty damn good.

###### 

No, no, no, no! NO! This couldn't be happening. She paced the room furiously, the strands of her white hair whipping about her as she turned. She could feel her boy being tainted with hope and a positive sense of anticipation and it was destroying his wonderful flavor. It was still there, seething and boiling below the surface, but it was being buried underneath layers of disgusting happiness.

This would not do.

She would not lose him. His soul had such promise to be her ambrosia, that perfect blend of everything dark and ugly. There was no longer time to let his body heal, his mind was healing faster and would soon be lost to her.

She forced herself to calm down. He wouldn't slip her grasp, it would be fine. There was still plenty of the darker emotions there to make him vulnerable to her and once she had him, they would build and grow beyond his admittedly strong ability to hold them. Then there would be no bringing him back, not even his family, only one possible outcome.

And all it would take was a touch.

He was resting, weakened and vulnerable, on the other side of the wall. He was on his way to sleeping and it would be deep and dreamless in his current injured state. A locked window was no deterrent to her and since the father had just been with him, he wouldn't be back soon. Easy, easy, easy.

It took only moments to erect her disguise of a plain, harmless middle aged woman and to go behind the motel. The window was salted, which gave her pause. Salt was not such an issue for her kind, but the fact that it was there said a lot about this family. They had been touched and knew that salt could keep a lot of things out. They might even be hunters. For a moment, she considered abandoning this one, the risk too great, but the scent of him was thick in her nose, her tongue itching to taste it. Perhaps it would be a mistake she might regret later, but one only came across something so delicious a few times in an incredibly long life. She had no doubt it would be worth it.

The window opened with merely a nudge of her hand, the air displacing the salt. She would have no way to fix it on her way out, but it wouldn't matter. All the warning in the world wouldn't save the boy once she touched him. She was inside then. This close to him, she could taste all that delicious pain in the air, dense and heady. Yes, the bright sweet taste of hope was awful and entirely too present, but it was an additive that could be wiped clean very easily.

She leaned over his prone form, drinking in his scent, letting it roll over her tongue. She supposed many would find him handsome, even beautiful, but she wasn't interested in his outside appearance when what rested within was so much better. She rested a hand on his forehead, adding her own mix to the dish, a smile curving her lips when the brightness within faltered and started to fade. He grimaced in pain beneath her hand, the light snuffing out altogether.

The link was made, the final preparation was complete. Now she would be able to start her feed. She could finally taste him fully now and it was an explosion of heartbreaking, soul ripping sorrow and pain. Her mouth watered as she drank down her appetizer, knowing how much better he would taste after he awoke and realized that nothing was better, that everything was still destroyed inside him. When he felt it getting worse.

She could barely contain her glee thinking of how amazing he would taste when he killed himself and she drank in his soul. She shivered in delight at the thought.

She left as quietly as she came in.

###### 

TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just want to add a special warning for some triggering material (suicide attempt, self harm)

_smashed up my sanity_  
_smashed up my integrity_  
_smashed up what i believed in_  
_smashed up what's left of me_  
_smashed up my everything_  
_smashed up all that was true_  
_gonna smash myself to pieces_  
_i don't know what else to do_

_"Gave Up" by Nine Inch Nails_

###### 

Bloodshot green eyes stared back at him from the mirror, the flat, dull irises looking like just another slice of glass, no emotion to spark them into life. He couldn't look beyond those eyes, couldn't believe they were his. He felt like he should be able to see what was inside him, it was so powerful, so big, but he couldn't. Dean wasn't sure how long he had been in the bathroom, hands gripping the sides of the sink until they were cramped, knuckles white, just staring at the tragedy that was his reflection.

He didn't understand what had happened. When he had gone to sleep earlier, he had been feeling better, more like the person he accepted himself to be, but now….it had taken every bit of self discipline he had to throw back his covers and get out of bed. It's like that talk with Dad had never happened, but it did, he knew it did, but he felt worse than he did before.

Dean didn't even understand how that was possible.

It was all back, the heavy, crushing weight making it so hard to lift his feet and raise his eyes, the condemning thoughts rattling around in his skull, telling him how little his presence brought to the world, the churning anxiety in his guts that any minute his family was going to throw their hands up and walk away from him. It was all back and it was all so much worse.

"You're fucked," he whispered to that dead eyed thing in the mirror.

He expected the reflection's lips to move in tandem, but that didn't happen and his eyes narrowed in confusion and not just a little apprehension on the full mouth now smirking back at him. Dean's breath caught in his throat as he stared at the mismatched image, sure his eyes were messing with him. He stuck out his tongue just to make sure and when the man in front of him didn't do the same, he pushed off the sink in sharp movement, falling back against the wall, eyes still glued on the horror in the mirror, the pace of his breathing rising in panic.

The image was still in the same place, not showing the panicked man with wide terrified eyes pressed flat against the wall that it should.

He looked back into his own eyes, but instead of reflecting back his fear, there was only pity and loathing in that steady gaze. He'd lost it. It was official, confirmed, and certifiable; Dean had given the bird to sanity and swan dived off the deep end. It was almost funny, having his own little horror movie moment, but being in the middle of it, he didn't feel like laughing. He knew he was in a dark place, but he wasn't expecting a psychotic break.

"Relax, you're not over the cuckoo's nest. Not yet," the image drawled, the smirk widening into a smug smile.

Dean just stared back, his mouth working and failing to say something, his throat too dry to pass words. He didn't know what the hell was happening, but he didn't like it. He wanted to call out for Sam or Dad, just to see if they saw this, but he stamped that idea right the hell down. The last thing he needed was them adding 'insane' to the laundry list of things about Dean that sucked ass. This wasn't real, it was just in his own fucked up head and he just had to pull himself out of it.

"I'll go when I'm ready, I just thought we should have a talk," his mirror twin said.

"Who are you?" Dean finally gasped out.

The image rolled its eyes and sighed. "I'm you, dumb ass. You think the world could handle two hot things like us walking around? That would surely fuck up the time and space continuum or something, send us all screaming into a black hole."

Dean couldn't do anything but stare, too afraid to move. It certainly sounded like him, but it couldn't be because he was here. Right? Oh man, if he wasn't crazy before, trying to reason this out would do it.

"I told you, you aren't crazy. You're just…well, not exactly a secret how messed up you are, is it? Everyone knows. They might even feel sorry for you if you were even worth the smallest shred of sympathy. Hell, I'm you and even I don't feel sorry for you," it scoffed.

"No, you're not me. This isn't happening, I'm dreaming or there is something doing this," Dean insisted, his head shaking in the negative. It was hard to think in his current situation, but he was trying to mentally sort through anything supernatural that this might be.

The pity was back in the image's face, but it was dripping with insincerity. "It would be nice to think that, right? Better than admitting that you are crashing so hard that the one piece of you that is worth something wanted to smack you around a bit first? This ship is going down and I'm tired of trying to bail it out. I talk to you all the time in your head, what's so different about doing it face to face? Here, I'll remind you, tell me when this sounds familiar."

The pity was gone out of its gaze then, eyes hardening back into disgust, mouth tight with distaste.

"Worthless."

"Pitiful."

"Loser."

"Waste of oxygen."

"Fuck Up."

"Stupid! Weak! Unwanted! Failure! Should I keep going, Dean? Recognize me now? I'm the truth, the truth you're too chicken shit to face up to," it spat.

The words pelted into Dean like bullets, his body, his entire being, flinching at hearing those words that he so often repeated to himself in the privacy of his head, out in the open. He always heard them in his own mental voice, but hearing it out loud was different, more concrete and real. He wanted to look away from the mocking eyes, his eyes, but he couldn't. There was no point. He couldn't escape the truth. He hated himself. He _loathed_ himself.

How could he expect anyone else to think differently?

Crazy or not, it didn't change who he was. It didn't change what a burden he was on his family, how much time and energy they had to expel to satisfy his neediness, how much they tried to breathe beneath his clinging grasp that tried to keep them there for him. Now he understood why Dad had said those things yesterday. He was indulging Dean's dependency on his regard, his praise. Not because he really cared, but because there was one thing Dean was at least somewhat good at; human shield. For Dad, for Sammy, for an unknown innocent. And since he wasn't dying this time, might as well try to keep him sweet for the next time.

Oh God, he was beyond all those words. There wasn't a word invented to describe how detestable he really was and if there was, he was too dumb to know it.

That smug smile was back on the image's face and Dean could understand now why he'd gotten in so many fights in the bars; he just wanted to hit him, wipe it off his face. Drive his fist into that smooth skin until it was bruised and bloodied and swollen, pound against bones until he was unrecognizable. Destroy that pretty face until he looked the same outside as he did on the inside.

He wanted to annihilate it so he never had to see it again.

It wasn't rage that had him smashing his fist into the mirror, it was a need to abolish himself, it was the deep well of despair overflowing and drowning him, sucking him in deeper and deeper where the light would never penetrate. He hit that ugly thing in the mirror over and over again, not caring that the shattered glass was slicing into his hand and wrist, not feeling the pain of his knuckles hitting the hard wall behind it, cracking the plaster. All he was aware of was that face, still smiling, still cocky, still breathing, now multiplied in all those tiny pieces of broken glass. A hundred Deans, all laughing at his failure.

It wasn't enough to ugly him up, it wasn't going to kill him. Only one thing was going to do that.

Dean was on his knees, and had a sharp piece of broken mirror in his hand before he was even aware of it, his hold on it tight and strong, cutting more slices into his already torn skin, so it wouldn't slip in the blood coating his fingers. In the bloodied reflection of that shard of mirror, he could see that the image had it too and he was nodding at him, the smile now soft and encouraging.

They were finally on the same page.

The reflected Dean lifted the shard to his throat and the real Dean did the same, eyes now gazing blankly at the door as he pressed it in, some vague part of him noticing that it was shaking and shuddering. A little flare of curiosity paused the motion his hand was tensing to do, his head tilting to the side as he tried to figure out why it was moving in the frame, why the knob was rattling. He realized he couldn't hear anything beyond the rushing of his blood and the voice that normally resided in his head, now screaming at him to do it, to rid the world of the disease that he was, but now that he realized it, there on the edges, he could hear something else.

"Dean! Dean, please open the door!" Sammy's voice, high pitched with panic, but hoarse like he'd been screaming for a long time. "Dad hurry!"

"Outta the way, Sammy!" That was Dad, voice deep and commanding.

Then the door was splintering by the knob, flying open and pounding against the wall. Dad was in first, his crazed eyes falling on Dean almost immediately, his mouth falling open and breath hitching as they locked on the shard still pressed to Dean's throat. Sammy was next, wide, scared eyes seeing all the glass, the blood, his brother kneeling in the midst of all of it.

Sam took a step forward and Dean jerked back, pressing the glass in harder. Sam stilled immediately, even seemed to cease breathing. Dean didn't want his family to see this, he wanted them to leave, but he couldn't find his voice to say it. All he had was the threat to try and chase them away. He knew they couldn't save him, even if they wanted to, because he knew now that this was the only way. He finally understood what he had been saying to himself all along, what he had realized with the black dog heavy and panting on top of him, and that was the first taste of peace he had felt in a long time. He would free them, free himself. They just needed to let him.

Dad had dropped down to his knees while Dean's attention had been caught by Sam's movement and he had a hand reached out to Dean now. It was his left hand, the light glinting off his wedding ring. Dean was transfixed by it, the gold flashing into his eyes the way his mother's hair used to when it would catch the sun. The turmoil in him eased even further as he took this as a sign, the reminder of his mother. He finished this, he would be with her again. She would be waiting for him, would hold him and love him. Tell him how proud she was, like she did when he took his first step, said his first word, and used the potty without telling her.

She's really the only one that had ever said she was proud of him.

It slowly filtered in that Dad was talking to him and as he focused in on him, the words started filtering through. "Dean? Come on now, we can talk about this, okay? Just put the glass down, all right?" he asked softly, his voice trembling. Dean's eyes tracked a droplet of sweat dripping down the side of Dad's face. It was odd, because Dean was so cold.

The hand reached closer and Dean countered it by shuffling backward, the sharp edges of the broken mirror below him grinding into his knees. He knew he should just get on with it, but he wanted this done in privacy. Those twin sets of worried, frightened eyes were starting to ruin the quiet that had come over him, making those other emotions start to come back, the ones that cared that he was freaking his family out, that he was about to cut his own throat in front of them.

Dean's eyes stayed locked on Dad's hand, still reaching for him. Dean knew the end of the line was coming, the bathtub was just behind him now. They weren't going to leave. He was just going to have to have some balls for a change and take care of business. Show them how much he loved them one final time by cutting loose the dead weight that he was with one decisive stroke.

It was time.

He took in a breath to steady himself and then pushed in harder on the glass, feeling it pierce into his skin. His eyes were still focused on Dad's hand, so he didn't see his right come out from low on the ground to catch under his wrist and sweep his arm away before he could start to drag the glass across the thin skin of his neck. Dean roared in frustration as the mirror shard was plucked out of his fist, immediately bending down to try and find another piece that would work, fighting against the hands now pulling at him, ignoring again their voices yelling at him. He would not fail again, he was sick of failing! He had a plan and it was going to work, he would not screw this up.

The last thing he saw was Dad's fist flying towards his face and then there was nothing.

###### 

She was rolling on the bed in ecstasy, fingers lifted to her mouth as his anguish poured through her, plumping up her hungry veins, filling the emptiness inside her. So good, so perfect, as delicious as she had imagined him to be. Every bit of his wretched soul was open and flayed, and she drank up the agonized hurt pouring off of it like a dark, red wine. The mirror thing was an old trick, but a very good one, it had never failed her. She hadn't expected to send him over the edge so soon, but it was hard to know the depth of loathing for himself this boy harbored inside, even with their link. He hid things exceptionally well.

Perhaps she had been a bit overzealous in her appetite.

His family may have pulled him back this time, but it wouldn't matter. She was actually grateful, she wanted more time to enjoy this feast. He was now steeping in his own perfect marinade of desolation and loathing, it would just make him taste all the better later.

And, hunters or not, she would eat his tasty soul. No one escaped her once they were touched.

###### 

TBC...


	6. Chapter 6

_One confession is such perfection_   
_Your sweet repression can't hide who you really are_

_"ULTRANumb" by Blue Stahli_

###### 

John stared down at his unconscious eldest son sprawled on the bed with shattered eyes, Sammy curled up next to him sleeping, his arms wrapped tightly and protectively around his older brother. John's mouth twisted and tightened as he tried to keep himself under control, remain calm and sharp so he could keep his family from falling apart. It was what they taught in Marine training; discipline, resolve and compartmentalization. John was a master of it. He had done that when Mary died, deciding after four months of hard drinking and barely taking care of his children to pull himself together and seek out answers. He did it during hunts, when he'd been so badly injured he didn't think there was any possibility of ever seeing his boys again, to force himself to get out, get moving, to survive. He did it when Dean or Sam were hurt, when he was covered in his children's blood and tears, their young faces creased up with pain, burying the knowledge of his failure as a father for a later time when he could grieve over it with a bottle. John had control over his emotions, they didn't control him, it was too dangerous.

But now?

His son had tried to kill himself. He had been about to cut open his throat right in front of them. How the hell was he supposed to be composed and focused when his world was ripping apart? His boy, his rock, was crumbling and John, for the first time in a very long time, had to admit that he didn't know what to do. He had to admit that he was absolutely terrified. No amount of training could help him stuff that down where it didn't affect him.

He studied Dean's pale face, wishing he could find the answers there, written out and obvious like in the pages of his journal, but all he saw was his boy that could still look so young, closed up and guarded even in sleep. The skin on his temple and around his left eye was red from the punch John had delivered to knock him out and it was shaping up to be a hell of a bruise. He felt a twinge of guilt at that, but looking down at the bandage in the hollow of Dean's neck, he acknowledged the necessity.

Dean had been like a wild thing in the bathroom, his already cut up hands shredding even more as he grabbed at the pieces of mirror on the ground, fighting for something to bleed him out. Even injured and emotionally unstable, he had been strong, knocking Sam out of the room and giving John a hell of a kick to the gut that still ached. There had been no calming him down, John had to drop him before he hurt himself or one of them.

Slumping back in the chair he had pulled up beside the bed, he rubbed his hands over his weary face. It was sheer luck that Sam had heard the mirror shatter, heard the furious pounding inside the bathroom. John had gone to get food and when he came back, it was to see Sammy screaming for Dean at the bathroom door, his trembling hands alternating between trying to pick the lock and pounding on the wood. John didn't bother asking questions, Sam's frightened and tear filled eyes gave him every answer he could need. When he broke open the door, what he had seen had just about killed him.

Dean kneeling in a pool of broken glass and blood, the look in his red, drenched eyes so destroyed, so damaged, tears just pouring down his face. His bloody hand clutching something shiny to his throat, something that was pressed against the skin where his carotid pulsed just beneath. John hadn't seen anything that awful since the night Mary burned.

Just the memory of that sight was enough to want to make him vomit.

He just didn't understand what had happened. Dean had been fine when they parted after their little talk, well maybe fine was a bit strong, but at least he didn't look as disconnected as he had before. Dean had seemed hopeful and had even cracked a joke. If that wasn't proof that things were getting better, John didn't know what was. He had been reluctant to let Dean end the conversation where it had, but he had trusted in what he'd seen in his son, in what he had said. John wasn't as ignorant to his kids' feelings as they probably thought, he just knew that Dean would rather pull out a fingernail than have a heart to heart, something he got from his old man, and having a rational discussion with Sammy simply wasn't possible anymore, it always escalated into an argument.

He had obviously read Dean wrong and it could have ended in disaster. Jesus, Dean had tried to _kill himself_. How the fuck did John miss how bad off Dean was, how did he let his eldest get to this place where death was his only resort? When did he start buying into Dean's "I'm fine" bullshit and taking it at face value?

Maybe when it became more convenient than giving a shit, his inner voice whispered, the one that always sounded like Mary.

John sighed. It was true. It had always been easier to just let Dean do what Dean did; bury, ignore, and deny. He knew he could trust Dean to take care of Sammy, of himself, and whatever else got thrown at him because he always did. Whenever John would wonder how he managed it, when he started to do figures that didn't balance in his head when Dean said they'd had enough money, when he saw how thin and haggard Dean would look when he had been gone longer than expected, Dean would smile and say everything had been fine, that he had handled it. And John, like the asshole he was, would smile back, buying the lie, his silent acceptance of it telling Dean that his sacrifices were the right thing to do, that it was expected that he would simply "handle it".

He had failed his boy magnificently, over and over again, and now he was faced with the result. Dean had snapped, something had finally been too much and he was so well practiced at hiding the emotions he didn't want seen, that no one had seen it. Not until it was too late.

"Dad?"

John's eyes jerked up at the quiet voice from the bed. Sammy was awake, his eyes and arms still firmly latched to Dean. They hadn't talked much after they got Dean out of the bathroom and Sam's fright had left him exhausted and drained. It seemed the best place for him to be when he wrapped himself around his broken brother and passed out.

"What's wrong with him?" Sam whispered, the words hitching slightly as the tears started to make their way back as the memories of what had happened hit him.

John didn't have the slightest idea of how to answer that. "I don't know, Sammy," he said finally, wishing he had a better answer to give him.

His youngest looked at him then, eyes measuring and judging. John knew that he was definitely found lacking this time, probably every time. "Well find out then. There has to be something in your journal," Sam snapped, checking himself at the volume of his voice, glancing back down at Dean guiltily. Dean didn't stir.

Something in his journal? John was confused at Sam's statement, unable to wrap his mind around what he meant by that. He wrote about their lives somewhat in the journal, but it wasn't in depth, it was all high level. What could he find in his journal that would explain…

"You think this is something supernatural, Sam?" John blurted, his mind and mouth moving as one as he realized what Sam meant.

Sam just gaped at him incredulously. "Of course it's something supernatural, Dad. This is Dean we're talking about here. Dean would never kill himself." Sam sounded so sure, so confident that something had made Dean do it, but John wasn't fully sold. Sammy hadn't seen Dean on last night's hunt, he hadn't seen him stop fighting. John could acknowledge that there was a distance between letting something happen and actually lifting your own hand to stab your own throat, but the end result was the same.

"You don't think Dean's been different lately?" John asked carefully. He didn't want to get a fight going about this, he truly wanted to talk this over, so restraint would be the word of the hour. He tried to remember all the things Dean would tell him, equally as carefully, to encourage him to meet Sam halfway. Don't attack, don't order, ask his opinion. Normally, John would balk at that, but now, everything was different.

The heat bled out of Sam's eyes then and his head tilted back down to Dean's peaceful face. He pulled his lip in between his teeth, worrying at it, his forehead wrinkling in sorrow. "Yeah, he has," he agreed softly. "I can't say how exactly, but he just hasn't been _Dean_. He just looks so sad and lost all the time. I should have said something, but you know how he is. Can't have anything approaching a conversation involving feelings." Sam's voice faltered out then, his eyes squeezing shut even as they filled with tears again. "I should have asked," he breathed on a tortured whisper. "He wouldn't have said anything, but at least he would have known that I cared, that I noticed. That's all Dean ever needs to bust out of his moods and I just couldn't be bothered, could I?" he finished, voice hard and bitter with self recrimination.

"Yeah, well we both missed the boat on this one, kiddo," John sighed, reaching over to rest a comforting hand on Sam's hair.

Sam nodded. "But I still can't believe he would do that, Dad. I just can't, it's not Dean," he stated simply.

John was inclined to believe Sam, no one knew Dean better than him, but he couldn't trust that it was because he truly agreed with his theory, or because it was easier to think something was doing this instead of facing up to the fact that Dean was broken. Killing something was easier than fixing someone.

"Okay Sammy, we'll look, but we also have to be prepared that it's not something supernatural, that there really is something going on with Dean," John warned.

For a moment, Sam looked like he was going to argue, but then his shoulders slumped back down and he just nodded. "Okay, but Dad?" he asked. "What's if it's both?"

Sam was on to something there. As much as John wanted to it to be something bad doing this to Dean and that killing it would restore his eldest son to his cocky, solid, bright self, he knew that even if it was, that Dean still needed their help. That talk they'd had earlier made it clear that Dean had been hurting and that they were the cause. If it was something supernatural, then his internal struggle had made him vulnerable to it.

"How'd you get so smart?" John asked with a crooked grin.

Sam gave him a toned down version of his impish high watt smile and shrugged. "Must've been from Mom's side."

Chuckling, John shook his head. "Yeah, no doubt." He was about to get up to grab his journal when he and Sam both saw Dean's head twitch slightly.

"Dean?" Sam prodded with hope that his brother was waking up.

Dean's head jolted to the other side of the pillow, his hands coming up in a defensive position. His eyes were rolling wildly under his eyelids, his breathing starting to quicken. He was clearly having a nightmare and from the way his face was contorted in terror, it was a bad one.

Sam was shaking him and calling his name, but Dean wasn't waking up. John joined in, wanting to save his son from whatever horror was chasing him through his head. Dean was oblivious to their efforts, and their hands on him only seemed to escalate his panicked thrashing.

John was backing away, and preparing to tell Sam to do the same when he heard Dean call out "Please Dad, please stop! I'm sorry, so sorry!"

The anguish in his voice iced over John's veins and halted his breath. What Dean had said, along with his posture, it was clear that he was dreaming about him.

And that John was hurting him.

###### 

_Dean was staring at the shtriga leaning over Sammy, afraid to breathe, to move. He knew he should be firing, he knew that if he didn't Sam was going to die, but he was completely paralyzed in shock and fear. The shotgun was impossibly heavy in his hands, his arms too weak to get a good shot off. He had trained for this, Dad had drilled it into him to fire first and ask questions later, but now faced with the real thing, he couldn't make his body obey his mind._

_It was then that he noticed he was not his ten year old self anymore, he was eighteen. The hands holding the gun were covered in cuts and blood, the knuckles on his right swollen and stiff. He understood then what was happening; he was dreaming. He had often dreamed of this night, one of his greatest failures, wanting to put it right, but only seeing it replay exactly as it had, or worse. Sometimes Dad didn't come at all and Sammy died in front of him, while he stood there like a statue, just watching it happen. Sometimes Dad did come, but it killed Dad before it went for Sammy. Never better, always the same or worse. Even in his own mind, he couldn't fix it, couldn't give himself a happy ending._

_He could hear a door banging open and he mouthed "Get out of the way!" even as Dad yelled it, well versed on the events of the night. He ducked down and moved to the other side of the door, the bullets that Dad was firing into the creature sailing over his head. It was gone and out the window, Dad following and still shooting until the gun clicked empty. Dean knew what was next. Dad would go to Sammy, calling his name, pulling him into his arms. Then he would look at Dean, the first time of many times he would see that look. The one that spoke of disappointment, betrayal, distrust. The one that made it clear that Dean had failed, that he would never again regain the respect that he'd had. Perfection had been expected and he hadn't measured up._

_Something different was happening this time. Instead of Dad asking what had happened, he was gently laying Sammy back down on the bed and was striding towards Dean, his eyes full of black rage. Dean stumbled back as he approached, but Dad reached out and grabbed Dean's shirt by his neck, hauling him forward. Dean was confused and uncertain. not sure what he should do. As many times as he'd dreamed of this night, this had never happened._

_"You stupid son of a bitch!" he screamed in Dean's face. "I gave you the easiest order in the world; to stay in a room. How fucking hard is that, Dean?" Dad shook him harshly to punctuate the words. "Huh? Are you so worthless that you can't even manage to sit in a chair? That too much for you? Answer me?"_

_Dean didn't know what to do, it was truly his worst nightmare come true. When Dad had come through the door, this is what he expected afterward, but that's not what happened. Dad had just given him that look and upped his training for a few weeks. Losing Dad's trust had been punishment enough, but he had always expected this, something more tangible, more physical to show Dad's disapproval. Now that he was seeing it, though, he wanted out. He didn't need this. He already knew how Dad felt, he didn't need to see it._

_"I'm just dreaming," he whispered, trying to make himself wake up._

_"You're gonna wish you were dreaming when I'm through with you!" Dad growled in reply, one arm swinging back to smash his fist into Dean's face._

_The left side of his face exploded in pain and he would have fallen if it wasn't for Dad's hold on him. He hit him again and this time Dean cried out for him to stop before he could pull the words back. Dad just laughed and tightened his grip on Dean's shirt._

_"This didn't happen," Dean said in panic, feelng blood dribble over his lips. He must have cut the inside of his cheek on his teeth. He had dreamed about being hurt lots of time, remembering injuries from hunts, but it never really hurt. This hurt. Not only did it really felt like he'd been punched in the face, but it was his Dad who hit him. Dad had never hit him outside of the training taps during their sparring, well there was one other time, but he understood that instance. He'd been hit hundreds of times by all manner of creatures and men, but because it was his Dad, it hurt a million times worse, because it went past his skin to his soul._

_"Oh it didn't happen?" Dad mocked him, pulling Dean closer so he could get in his face. Dean cringed away at the hate in Dad's eyes. "You bet your ass it happened," he continued, a taunting smile curving up his lips. "You think I'd just let you get off with some extra laps? You think that's all I would do if you let your brother get killed because you couldn't follow an order? That is an impressive system of self delusion you've got there. You just forget and rewrite the memories you don't like. Well, it's broken now and it's all coming out. You want to see the rest of it, Dean? See how this night ends?"_

_Dean shook his head, denying both his father's words and the doubt in his own mind. He didn't forget what happened, even if he had only been ten at the time, he knew exactly every event that went down, it couldn't be true. He'd lived it and ever since then he dreamed it, over and over. Dean realized with a sharp intake of air how much he'd depended on his dreams to tell him what happened. Dreams that altered. Dreams that shifted and changed depending on his mental state at the time. Dreams, those things that were basically little more than unreliable and nonsensical images and words. Had one version of the night reoccurred so often that it had become his truth?_

_Had he just invented it all? Been so traumatized by his failure to protect Sammy and what Dad had done that he buried it away and then changed it so he remembered something different? He could barely remember the car ride to Pastor Jim's. He always thought it was because he'd been in shock and had been buried under the weight of his shame. Was it actually because he had been injured, his ten year old body beaten down by his Dad's fists? Is that why he had expected the beating for months afterward, because it had actually happened?_

_It had always been so strange that Dad had let him off so lightly. Dad was a soldier, a man of action. He wouldn't just shake his head and call it good. He would make sure Dean would remember what he'd done. He would make him feel his failure in the worst way possible so it didn't happen again._

_Dean was an expert at repress and deny. Maybe he didn't realize how truly good at it he'd become._

_"No," Dean whispered weakly, one last attempt to deny the conclusions his mind had presented him with._

_"Well I'm not giving you the choice. You'll see it. You'll feel it. And you'll know how messed up you really are. You're lucky I didn't just leave you here. I thought about it, you know. Tried to decide if it was worth trying to keep training you up or if it would just be better to cut you loose. If I'd known then what I know now? Well, I think you know the answer to that. You turned out to be a bad investment," Dad smirked._

_Dean's resistance collapsed at that, his doubt in his own memories enough to tell him that what he'd remembered had all been a lie. If he couldn't say for certain that it didn't happen, then it maybe it did. He was breaking down, maybe everything he had bricked up in his mind was falling loose, his control over all the memories gone._

_His Dad's fist burying into his gut, forcing his breath out of him, made sense. The upper cut under his jaw that sent him to the floor was the proper response for what he'd done. The kick to the ribs that had him curling in on himself in agony more appropriate than extra push ups. He'd almost let his brother get killed because he didn't follow orders, because he didn't do his job. He should just consider himself lucky that his Dad found enough worth in him not to kill him because that's what he deserved._

_The pain was overwhelming, but it wasn't from what Dad was doing to him. That he had earned and he would take it like a man. What hurt was the evidence of how utterly screwed up he was. No wonder he never got better, never stop messing up. He buried away his punishments, forgot them. How many times had he done this? He could easily think of a dozen times where he'd screwed up just as badly. He understood it now, Dad's impatience and irritation. He'd showed Dean what would happen if he didn't shape up and Dean just didn't listen. How could he ever face his Dad now, ever apologize for forgetting his lessons?_

_He no longer wanted to wake up._

###### 

It was quite rude to toy with his dreams like that, one shouldn't really play with their food, but there was something so satisfying about the way the boy just continued to disintegrate, more and more layers of deep seated emotional wounds just offering more delights. Just when she thought they were getting close to rock bottom, she found another level. He actually believed that little farce she'd concocted, that his father had nearly beat him to death that night simply because the boy had thought that's what his father should have done, what he deserved. It was so mouthwatering, all that sadness and dejection.

The boy didn't have a single iota of trust in himself. He gave in so easily and believed that he had hidden it all away. He was even disgusted with himself over that. She didn't even know how he'd managed to last this long without trying to do himself in if this is truly what went around in his mind. What her touch had passed on was making everything stronger, warping it all out of perspective and truth, but he was already deluding himself so much, that it was hardly needed. He was full of those nasty other things that humans found appealing; courage, strength, loyalty, love, but he didn't see any of it, at least he didn't see any of it positively.

Now that they were linked, she could traipse into his mind whenever she felt like and it was fertile ground indeed. Now that she was feeding so deeply, he would likely be asleep more than awake as his body weakened and she could continue to manipulate his dreams, find what else might be hidden in there. And if he was awake? Well, there was plenty of fun to be had there as well. Then she could get the family in on it, that always added an extra dash of spice.

###### 

TBC...


	7. Chapter 7

_You can't take this away from me_   
_You can't relieve these demons_   
_You can't make this okay for me_   
_You're the one who caused these feelings_

_"The Death of Me" by Asking Alexandria_

###### 

When Dean opened his eyes and found himself in bed, the first thing that hit him was the crushing disappointment that he was still there, that his lungs hadn't finally just given up and stopped reaching for air, suffocated by desolation and starved of a desire to live. He wasn't all that surprised, that would be too easy for the likes of him. He could vaguely feel the aches and pains in his body from the black dog bites, from broken glass grinding into skin, but he was mostly numb. His veins felt empty, the beating of his heart seemed almost an afterthought, like it too was trying to find a reason to keep pumping. He wished it would just throw in the towel like he had.

The second thing he was aware of was Sam. His little brother was slumped against the headboard next to him, brows drawn into a frown as he read through a book that probably weighed the same as he did. It was one of Dad's, a tome on the fuglies of the world that he had borrowed permanently and without permission from Bobby. Sam hadn't noticed he was awake yet and Dean wanted to keep it that way. The less interaction he had to have with his family, the better. He didn't want to hear them try and placate him and save him out of some displaced pity or obligation. They'd shown him their feelings for him over and over again, he had just been too damn pathetic to believe it, choosing to make up little lies and excuses for their behavior and words to make himself feel better.

The dream, well nightmare, he'd had was still fresh in his mind. He could hear Dad's words, filled with contempt and coated with venom that was still killing him even awake. Dean could almost feel the bruises and broken bones that he had earned by not following Dad's order and putting Sam in danger. That clarity just reinforced his certainty that it had all been real. It had never been mentioned, but why would it be? Winchesters didn't discuss things like that, once something was said or an action done, that was that. Dad had expected him to learn his lesson. Yet, Dean hadn't, he had obviously buried it away to suit himself, and it had done nothing but cause more trouble down the road. If Dean had remembered it as it happened, maybe he wouldn't be here today. He would have improved. Been faster, stronger, smarter, just better. Made his Dad proud.

Part of him just wanted to go back to sleep and try again to never wake up, but part of him was so afraid to. What if there was more locked away in his head? He was already so destroyed, his sanity fracturing into jagged and ugly pieces, what would he do if he saw more? On the other hand, being awake had its own problems. They were going to try and talk to him, he knew it, and Dean didn't have even the slightest desire to have that conversation. They'd already seen him at his worst, huddled on that floor clutching that mirror piece like it was the only thing in the world that mattered. Why didn't they just let him finish it? If would have been the right thing to do.

Of course, what if they didn't say anything? What if they simply didn't care at all, or were angry with him for failing? They had stopped him, but maybe he had misunderstood that too. Maybe they just didn't want him to do it that way, wanted it done cleaner, or somewhere else so they didn't have to go to the trouble of cleaning up after and disposing of his body.

He wasn't sure what reaction would be worse and that told him everything he needed to know about his mental state. He was ready to go. He had nothing and no one to fall back on. There was only one escape for him and because he'd messed up his first attempt, it might be difficult to get a chance at a second. But even though he was twisted and torn both inside and out, he still had his hunter's instincts and cunning. He would get away. No matter what reaction he got from his family, he wasn't going to change his plan.

"Dean?"

Shit, Sammy had noticed that his eyes were open. Feigning sleep until it became the real thing was no longer an option. Dean sighed and rolled his head away so he couldn't see Sam's earnest and worried face. It wasn't real. Nothing was real anymore, it was all a story he had invented to keep himself going, but he was onto it now. No more lies, not to his family, not to himself. It was the end of the line, there was no point for it anymore.

The book was slammed shut and Sam was leaning over him, trying to chase his gaze, but Dean let his eyes focus on the ceiling he could see just past Sam's head. It had that nasty popcorn crap on it, one of the most worthless inventions ever created. It always looked like shit, had no real use and it was impossible to clean. Completely pointless. He could relate.

"Why won't you talk to me? What did I do?"

Dean finally noticed that during his absorption in the ceiling that Sam had been talking to him and was becoming increasingly upset that Dean wasn't responding. Fourteen years of ingrained instinct to respond to the sound of his little brother in distress was enough to cut through the fog of depression and shift his eyes slightly to meet his brother's. Eyes so like his own, but holding blue in the green where Dean's had gold, eyes that were wet and red, and wide with misery and anxiety. They bored into him, searching, trying to find some connection, something that resembled his big brother, but Dean couldn't bring him to the surface even if he wanted to. That man wasn't here anymore.

They needed to understand that. If they knew he was already gone, that the Dean they knew was already dead and rotting inside the skin that remained, exposed as the fake he was, it would be easier for all of them. Besides, he had made one last promise to himself; the lying was over.

"It's not about you, Sam," Dean said flatly.

Sammy's visage went from tragic to hopeful in just those few words. Dean sighed inwardly. He hadn't meant to give Sam hope, just the opposite, but he should have known that just responding to him would give Sam the thought that he had an opening. Sam was a master of the heart to heart and he had gotten Dean to have them way more often than he was comfortable with. Sammy clearly thought he had succeeded again.

He was wrong.

"Okay, then what is it about? Do you know what is doing this to you?" Sammy asked eagerly, kneeling back on the bed to give Dean some space. He was really getting too big for both of them to be in the same bed comfortably, his knees pressed up against Dean's side, careful of his injured arm.

The question filtered in slower than it should have, but when it finally sunk in what he had asked, Dean started to laugh. There was nothing happy or humorous about the sound tearing out of his mouth, it was bitter, broken and jaded. He could see its impact on his brother, but the resurgence of Sam's concern, even something approaching caution, didn't sway him. Sam thought a 'what' was doing this to Dean, he couldn't possibly believe that it was something much closer, something very tangible, a 'who' instead of a 'what'.

"Go away, Sam," Dean finally said softly once his laughter faded on a sound that was suspiciously like a sob, his eyes skipping away again.

"No!" Sam shouted, grabbing hold of Dean's shirt to shake him slightly. Dean didn't respond, was trying to nestle back down into the comforting white noise of his solitary breakdown so he could disengage from this confrontation, but Sammy obviously wasn't going to let him. "Let me help you, Dean. You're scaring me. Just tell me what happened, what is causing this and we'll take care of it." There was an edge of desperation in Sam's voice then and Dean was reminded what his little brother had seen in that bathroom earlier. He had seen his brother about to kill himself. Even if he didn't really care about Dean anymore, that still had to be tough to witness. Sam had always been a sensitive kid.

"You can't help me. Just get out," Dean responded, his tone calm and empty.

"You don't know that until you let us try! Just describe it, or what your symptoms are and we'll check all the books. Dad's going through his journal right now and has a call out to some other hunters to see if they've ever run across anything like this, so we'll…"

Dean couldn't take it anymore, it was tearing him up all the more to hear Sam act like he cared, and he cut Sam off by finally looking at him full on, allowing the raw, bleeding hurt inside him to fill his shattered eyes. Sam gasped and backed away slightly, something akin to fear flashing across his young face.

"You want to know what's causing this? It's me, just me. You've always told me that I'm just a brainless idiot who can only act when I'm commanded to. That without Dad pulling my strings, the only thinking I would be capable of doing for myself is with my dick or my stomach. Well I get it now. It's finally sunk into my thick skull how difficult it must be to put up with me. That I am all the things you call me, that I am unable to do anything but follow orders and half the time I don't even do that right. I read you loud and clear. You don't need me. I'm just sorry it took so long to get it, Sam."

There was no anger in Dean's voice, nothing approaching blame or even sarcasm. The words were said with heartbreaking sincerity, dripping with guilt. When Sam started to cry, Dean could almost feel the desire to comfort him, could almost latch onto it and follow it back to the Dean he used to be, but it was too far away, trapped deep inside the desolate graveyard that his mind had become. So instead, he let it die, like every other impulse that sparked up that spoke of _lifeSammylifefamilylifeDad_. There was no place for it any of it now, it would just cause him more pain and he already got the picture. No need to torture himself by trying to grab onto something that wasn't real, go back to being that sad, pitiful little boy that had been Dean.

Sam was talking to him again, shaking him, but Dean was barely aware of it. He was sinking back down into the swirling darkness in his head, drifting away as the heavy weight of exhaustion deadened his already numbed limbs. Being present enough to speak and think was too hard, too much work when he just wanted to be gone already, just cease to be.

Whatever was on the other side had to be better than this.

###### 

John was startled away from his perusal of his journal, heart immediately pounding twenty times faster, when Sammy ran into the room, crying as if his heart was shattering. John was up immediately, rushing over to his youngest, glancing into the room to make sure something hadn't happened to Dean, but he was still laying still in the bed where he had left him. He wasn't sure what he'd been afraid of seeing, but he was at once relieved and discouraged to see that Dean hadn't seemed to move at all.

"Sammy, what is it?" John asked, leaning down slightly to try and catch Sam's gaze from under his bangs. He didn't have to go far, the kid was almost as tall as Dean now. Sam just shook his head, the silent sobs wrenching through his stretched too thin frame, his arms curled around himself protectively.

"Come on, dude, talk to me. What happened? Did Dean do something?" he asked.

Sam sniffed hard, and finally lifted up his head. John was taken aback by the crushed look in his eyes, the trembling of his turned down lips. "I was wrong. He said it's just him, Dad," he whispered.

"What's just him, Sam?" John asked in an attempt to clarify.

"This!" Sammy shouted, gesturing back toward the room with a careless hand. "He said it wasn't a monster, that it was all him. Because he thinks I don't need him, Dad. All the bad things I've said to him….it's like he thinks that's all that's real, that everything else doesn't exist." Sam threw himself onto the tattered couch, not even noticing the exposed spring that pressed into his leg. He buried his face in his hands, his fingers digging into his scalp. "It's all my fault," he moaned.

"No, Sam!" John barked, feeling a renewed rush of panic surge through him. He already had one son on the brink, he couldn't let Sammy slip there too. He didn't know exactly what was happening with Dean, but he knew Sam was going to be the key to get him out of this. Those two had a bond like he'd never seen, but he had to keep Sam strong and resolved so he could pull Dean back. "This is not your fault. If that's true, if this isn't something doing this to Dean, then we're all responsible. That also means we can fix it," he promised. He meant it, he had to believe that they could put the pieces of Dean back together again or John wasn't sure how he was going to keep managing to bother breathing.

Looking up at him again with those sad, misery filled eyes, Sam said, "You didn't see him, Dad, didn't hear him. He's lost somewhere, but I don't think he wants to come back."

John deflated just a bit at that. Ever since Sam had suggested that it was something supernatural causing this, that had made his son almost slash his throat, John had been eagerly warming up to the idea. There were a lot of things out there that fed on some type of emotion, succubi off of lust, maras fear, but John wasn't aware of anything that could cause suicidal thoughts. That didn't mean anything, though, he knew there was a still a shit load of evil he hadn't yet crossed paths with yet. He wasn't worried about that, whatever it was, they would figure out how to kill it.

The fear Sam had voiced was what was torturing him, that there was nothing but Dean and a breakdown that John's unreasonable expectations had caused behind all of this.

It was time to find out.

"He's coming back, Sam," John stated firmly, imbuing those words with promise and finality. "Just stay here, I'm going to try and get through to your brother."

Sam stood up quickly then, his jaw firmed in determination. "No, I should be there. Dean is...fragile," Sam said, his mouth seeming to have trouble connecting the description to his brother. "And you don't exactly do 'fragile', Dad. What if you make it worse?"

How could it possibly be worse? But John kept that thought to himself.

"Sammy, Dean isn't touchy feely. I know he bends on occasion for you, but it's not the best way to make him respond. I just want to try it my way to see what happens. I promise, if it looks like I'm making things harder on him, I will stop, but I need to try," John explained.

Sam's eyes narrowed, some of his upset starting to give way to anger. "You're just going to try and order him out this, aren't you?" Sammy seethed, his hands curling into tight fists.

John sighed. He hadn't expected Sam to understand, hell he wasn't sure he understood it, but he knew one thing about his son. Dean was a soldier and he always responded to orders and commands. He could be broken, bleeding and barely conscious and a sharp word from John would get him going. John felt that if he could just get back to the understanding they had reached earlier, then he could start working on repairing his child. He wanted to just try it before he started in on the books again.

"Yes I am. And that's why I don't want you in there because you'll just argue with me and then we'll forget who we're doing this for so we can shout at each other," John shot back, hating the defensive heat in his voice. He didn't mention that he was also afraid of what else Dean might end up saying. If he had already said enough to make Sam this upset, who knew what else might come out? He didn't want Sam any more distressed than he already was. "I'm not going to hurt him, Sam, I'm just going to try this out. It doesn't work, we get back to the research." John already had a backup plan if their research continued to come up empty, but he wasn't looking forward to it. Bobby Singer wasn't exactly in his fan club, but he did care for Dean, so he was hoping that would convince the man to help him out.

For a long moment, Sammy just stared at him, the maturity in his gaze catching John slightly off guard. Sammy was becoming a man, not as fast as Dean had, but still much faster than most kids, and John hadn't been keeping up with that. He had still been treating him like a little kid. So had Dean. No wonder he lashed out so much.

"Ok, Dad. Just…be careful, all right?" Sam finally asked, the growing anger fading back into drained worry.

John smiled at him the best he could, trying to inject some reassurance into it, but he knew he failed when the nervousness didn't fade out of Sam's expression. He knew his boys had always been able to see through him, but it was only Sam who didn't bother to act like he couldn't. He turned and headed back towards the bedroom. It took only seconds for him to realize that Dean wasn't on the bed anymore. Fear and alarm raced through him on a glacial tide even as his long legs made quick work of the few feet in between him and the bedroom.

His eyes immediately lit upon Dean, who was at the window, one leg already outside of it. John didn't think, he just acted. He had his arms around Dean's middle in an instant, knowing he was pressing on cuts and bruises that had to hurt like hell, but it didn't stop the thrashing that Dean started the second he was restrained. He braced to pull them away from the window, but Dean had a death grip on bottom of the raised pane and wasn't about to let go.

"No, let me go! Just let me go!" Dean screamed, twisting and contorting his body to try and get out of John's hold.

"Dammit, Dean, you knock this shit off!" John barked out, loosening one arm from Dean's torso to pull at the hand that was clamped on the window.

Dean's only response was to kick back, catching John in the knee. He grunted as the joint bent towards a direction it wasn't intended to, but he kept working at Dean's hand until it finally came loose. The opposition in force sent them both crashing to the floor and Dean took advantage of his landing on top to try and scramble up, but John still had an arm wrapped tightly around him. Someone would have to cut it off before he would let go.

John flipped their positions easily, pressing Dean down into the floor with a knee in his solar plexus and his wrists pinned by his hips. He continued to twist and heave, but finally slumped back, panting with fatigue. John had to force himself to look at his son's pale face, the glimpses he'd already had showing him nothing but a terrifying mix of bleak emptiness and despair.

"Why can't you just let me go? I'm just trying to make things better," Dean gasped out, tears starting to streak down his face.

John saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and identified it as Sam, hovering and waiting to help. He wasn't sure why Dean thought taking off was going to help anything, but it was the last thing John was going to let him do. He just wanted this over and fixed, this was territory he'd never imagined he would ever be in. He was almost willing to pray that this was something supernatural, that Dean wasn't just broken inside.

"We just want to help you, Dean," John answered softly, lifting his knee up slowly from Dean's body, watching him carefully to make sure his apparent exhaustion wasn't a ruse. Dean was almost scary strong at the moment, but his body was injured and tired, John didn't want to have to hurt him to restrain him.

Dean's eyes hardened for a brief moment. "You want to help me? Give me a gun and some privacy," he said starkly, the open honesty in eyes stealing away John's breath.

John felt like he'd been cut open and punched directly in the liver. "Jesus, Dean. Why? Why would you want to do that?" he hissed out. When Dean didn't respond, only let his head roll away so he wasn't facing him anymore, John grasped his face in his hands, turning it back to him. He felt every bit of the pain shining out of Dean's eyes inside himself, felt the accusation that Dean would never make that he had failed his son.

"You tell me why, Dean! Right now!" John demanded, shaking Dean's head slightly with the words.

Dean's lips twisted into a gruesome parody of a smile for a brief moment, before it fell back into the tortured frown that was flattening out his plush mouth. "Your toy soldier is broken, Dad. I tried to fix myself, but there's too many pieces missing. I'm sorry, I know how hard you tried to make me better, make me work, but it was hopeless from the start. Too many pieces missing, too many pieces that were never there at all," he explained in a breathless rush, tears falling from his eyes to gather in the line between Dean's cheeks and John's hands.

John saw his own tears fall on Dean's face, the only clue he had that they were there at all. Those words that had tumbled out of Dean's mouth that were laced with sorrow and regret had torn something in him. He had seen Dean not okay a lot of times, but this was something else. He depended on Dean to be the strongest of all of them, he had the hardest burden to bear and Dean had never let him down. Not really. The things that he knew Dean termed as "failures" were not his, they were John's because he'd expected a child to have the responsibility of an adult.

If it wasn't a thing doing this to Dean, then John knew right where the fault rested.

He wanted to say something, could feel Sam's eyes burning into him, demanding that he say something, but he could barely breathe past the lump in his throat, much less speak. He wanted to shove the father aside, let the hunter in him take over since he would be effective in this situation, but he couldn't look past Dean's tormented gaze that was, even now, dulling and fading into that same empty expression he'd had when John first found his son in the bathroom.

"I just want to die. It hurts too much to be here. Please, Dad, let me go. I'll do it, you don't have to waste a bullet. Just let me go," Dean whispered, his voice hoarse and wasted, his long lashes, spiky with tears, coming down to hide him away again.

John was shaking his head without being fully aware of making the motion, his own body rejecting Dean's words even as his brain processed them. "No, Dean. I'm not ever letting you go. Not ever, do you hear me!" John shouted, pulling his son up to hold him close, burying his face in his sweaty hair. Dean trembled against him, but he didn't fight, his limbs loose and lax.

"Not ever," John swore reverently against Dean's ear.

###### 

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

_I only see myself reflected in your eyes_   
_so all that I believe I am essentially are lies_   
_and everything I've hoped to be or ever thought I was_   
_died with your belief in me so who the hell am I?_

_"Shame" by Stabbing Westward_

###### 

They'd had to tie Dean up. It had made him scream and writhe to be restrained, and made John feel like he was just piling on the torture onto his damaged son, but he couldn't afford to take the chance that he might get free. Dean had continued to plead and beg for his release, from the room, from life, even as they bound his hands to the rails, his ankles to the posts at the bottom. There wasn't a single doubt in his mind that if Dean had managed to get out of that room, they would have never seen him again. Not alive, anyway.

John had asked Sam to get Dean to eat, or at least drink, but for all the fervor he had pleaded for his release, the flood of emotion pouring out of his normally masked eyes, Dean was silent in every way now. His eyes were open, but they were blank and fixed, staring at nothing that Sam or John could see. The restraints seemed to have done too well in calming him, he was catatonic now. All efforts to get him to consume anything ended up just dribbling down his chin. Sammy had managed to get a bit of water down his throat, but it wasn't pretty, and John could tell that Sam didn't feel too good about himself afterward.

When Dean went quiet, the research had resumed with increased intensity. Sam stayed in the room with Dean and John could see him frequently stopping from looking through the book to just stare at his brother for several minutes, eyes hollowed out with fear and frustration, before returning to the book with even more determination.

The returned calls from fellow hunters John left messages with had resulted in nothing concrete, not even something that could be considered a lead. The worse thing about it was the sympathy in those voices, the sincerity when they apologized for not being able to help. Dean brought that out in people, they liked him, admired him, wanted to do what they could for him. Because they trusted without a doubt that he would do the same if they needed him. He just couldn't understand why Dean didn't see how much he meant to people.

When the final person he had left a message with called with nothing to offer, John had thrown the phone in a flash of discouraged fury. His little tantrum had resulted in him having to put the handset back together, but it had been worth it to relieve just a tiny bit of the pressure that was building inside him. That was everyone he knew that would actually talk to him and no one had any ideas. He stared in the room at Dean's profile, remembering how he had pleaded to die, that whole scene the stuff of nightmares.

It was starting to look more and more that it was exactly as Dean had said; he was just broken.

John sighed and glared down at his phone. He had one last person he could call, but it was a serious gamble that the man would even talk to him. They had hardly parted on the best terms last time they spoke. Yelled, threatened and insulted was really closer to the truth than 'spoke'. John had managed to get himself chased off the property with a shotgun. Well this wasn't a time to hold onto old grudges and it wasn't for him, it was for Dean. That might make all the difference in the world.

He dialed the number he had written in his journal, gritting his teeth at every digit that went in.

"Yeah?" a gruff voice greeted him.

Do or die time. "Bobby, it's Joh…"

*click*

Did that bearded old coot just hang up on him? He sure as shit did. John could feel his fingers tighten around the phone, the plastic starting to creak under the strain. To say he was angry was an understatement. Bobby should know he wouldn't call unless it was important. Well, there was that one time when he had needed to get bailed out and Bobby had made it very clear he didn't think that was important.

John dialed again, determined to hold onto his temper and try again.

"Can't you take a damn hint, Winchester, or was the shotgun too subtle for you?" Bobby greeted grumpily when he picked up. John was just relieved that he had answered again.

"It's Dean." John could almost feel the shift in Bobby just from his breathing. Bobby had always had a soft spot for the boys, especially Dean. That soft spot is what led to their falling out. Bobby didn't agree with John's philosophy on child raising. Yeah, that was a way to put it.

"What did you do to him?" Bobby asked bluntly. "Wait, this is 'take no responsibility John Winchester', so let me rephrase. What did you let happen to him?"

He let it go, John had deserved that. "I don't know what got him. He's….hell, he's suicidal, Bobby." Saying that word was a lot harder than he had expected.

"Suicidal?" Bobby tossed out. "You want to get a bit more specific?"

John explained the events over what had barely been twenty four hours, not leaving anything out. If Bobby was going to help, then he needed all the facts. He was careful to move further away from the room and drop his voice when discussing what he'd seen on the black dog hunt so Sam didn't hear. Sam was tore up enough, he didn't need to know that what he'd seen in the bathroom wasn't the first time Dean had tried to off himself. Bobby listened quietly, only sighs and muffled curses his contribution to the conversation.

"I know it looks like he's having a complete mental collapse, but I'm not buying it. I know Dean keeps a lot of shit inside, but this isn't a fit of depression, he wants to die, Bobby. He's not even thinking about what it would do to Sam and you know as well as I do that Sammy is the first and last thing Dean thinks about. What do you think?" John concluded, trying to contain his impatience.

Bobby didn't say anything for a minute, digesting, John figured, but he finally asked, "You said Dean's been acting off recently? Depressed and quiet?"

"That sums it up," John answered. Depressed, quiet, distant, hollow, unhappy. Pick your adjective.

"Any wounds besides the dog?" Bobby continued.

"Not any I've seen, at least not before the mirror incident." Incident. More like catastrophe, fiasco, world turned fucking upside down disaster.

"Is there any chance Dean could have run into something?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah, there's a chance. He's grown man, I don't keep watch on him all hours of the day." John had already gone through the last few days and he had acknowledged that there were plenty of times Dean had been alone. He'd been taking a lot of solitary walks lately.

Bobby sighed and grew quiet again. "John, I get why you would think that something is doing this, I do. Dean's a tough kid and he seems to just about always handle the plate of shit he's been dealt with in his life, but have you considered that he just needs some help? I'm talking real, medical license type of help here, not a few shots and an order to 'buck up'. Maybe he just needs some time off, there's nothing so strong it can't break under the right strain."

John could feel the annoyance starting to rise back up and he wrestled into submission with effort. Bobby's statements were valid, he had thought them himself, but he needed to be sure. If it was supernatural and they didn't find out about it, his son was very likely dead. Not an option.

"Listen Bobby, I know you don't think much of me as a father or a man," John started. He could swear Bobby mumbled "Understatement", but he didn't challenge him. "but I know my boy. I know what he's capable of handling, I know how strong he is. He wouldn't slip like this, he would at least try to fight it. He's not fighting anything right now." The more John thought about it, the more he believed his words. Dean wouldn't just lie down and take this, even if it was his own thoughts doing it to him. He had seen his son fight back that morning after the black dog attack, something had to have happened to make him give up again.

"Well you could be right. I have some research to do. Gimme your number, I'll call you back," Bobby said, rustling at the other end sounding like he was getting a pen.

John gave it to him, resisting the urge to sigh in relief. He and Bobby may have had their disagreements, but Bobby was a walking encyclopedia on the supernatural and if he didn't know about it, then he had a book that did. If this was something attacking Dean, he would find it.

"Thanks Bobby," he added before the other man could hang up the phone.

"Don't thank me yet. Save it for when we fix up Dean," Bobby responded shortly.

John disconnected the call and dropped the phone, running his hands over his weary face. He had some hope now, but it didn't settle the churning in his stomach or chase away the fear making it hard for him to think. Before he realized it, his hands were clasped together, pressed against his mouth in a motion he hadn't bothered with in a long time. He wasn't a man to believe in much anymore, not after his wife had been snatched away from him, but if it would help, he would try to muster up some faith from the black pit of bitterness and despair that drove him. He could make a call, a plea, that Dean was going to make it out of this.

He wasn't expecting an answer. He never did.

###### 

_Dean heard the car pull up, the deep throaty growl not filling him with eagerness today. All it managed to do was ramp up his anxiety, the high pitch static that had been in his head for the last couple of sleepless days growing in intensity. If he had been able to eat anything recently, he would have lost it the second he heard the car door slam. He knew he was going to be in for it as soon as Dad came through that door and he drew in a deep breath in an effort to prepare himself. The promise of punishment had been clear in his tone when Dean had made his call to tell him that Sammy was gone. Dean wouldn't be all that surprised if Dad walked in the door with gun out to get rid of his incompetent son right then. It was what he deserved._

__

_Sam had been gone for just over a week, a horrible, harrowing week that allowed Dean no time for sleep, food, or anything that wasn't connected to searching for his brother. He had checked all around the town, knowing that was careless, that it would just draw attention, but he was pulling out all the stops. Every person he asked, every place he checked just presented him with more dead ends. Sammy had just vanished, a twelve year old boy missing and no one had seen a thing._

__

_That was eight days ago._

__

_When he'd finally accepted his defeat, finally admitted that he couldn't find his brother on his own, he had called Dad. He'd had to work up to it, already knowing how the conversation was going to go, well aware that he was about to get a small glimpse of the heaps of shit he was in when Dad got home._

__

_He hadn't been disappointed._

__

_There had only been a brief shout of "What?" once Dean confessed why he was calling. Then Dad had gone immediately cold and purposeful, talking to Dean like he was an enemy. He had made it extremely clear that Dean was supposed to stay put and wait for him. He had made it even more clear how furious he was that this had happened and that there would be severe consequences. Dean didn't care, he was actually looking forward to whatever his Dad dished out. All Dean wanted was to pay for what had happened, atone for failing so magnificently at his one job and Dad would do it better than he could._

__

_He had spent the time since Sammy had gone missing imagining all the things that might have happened to Sam until he was kneeling over the toilet and dry heaving, his throat raw and tears pouring down his face. Now Dad was here and he could relax. No matter what Dad did to him, he would find Sam. Dean had no doubts about that at all. He just had to face up to his punishment like a man._

__

_Wait, this had already happened._

__

_The Dean of now remembered this. He now knew he was dreaming again of another example of when he had let his family down, an event he had dreamed about often, but this time he felt like he was just observing from inside his sixteen year old head instead of being an active participant. It was confusing, feeling what he felt then against what he still felt about it now, but the core of it hadn't changed. It still filled him with shame and anger at himself that he had he had messed up so badly, the guilt as fresh now as it was that day. It had happened two years ago, but the memory of the two weeks he was visiting again was pristine and perfect in his recollection. At least he always thought it had been. He felt a resurgence of terror that this was going to be like the shtriga memory, that he was going to see something else that he had buried away._

__

_And what he remembered of what happened was bad enough, if it had really been worse, he really didn't want to see it. He was stuck here, though. Dean knew that just as surely as he knew Dad was about to walk in the door. He was about to see something else revealed._

__

_The door opened and Dad was there, a looming dark presence against the brightness outside and Dean stood just that little bit straighter, trying to coax his limbs into ceasing their trembling, keep the tears that were welling up in his eyes from dripping into noticeable trails down his bloodless cheeks. Then the door was shut and Dean could see Dad's face. It was the look, the one that made him feel like the smallest ball of human waste smeared and defiling the shape of something beautiful._

__

_"Dad, I'm.."_

__

_Dean never got to finish the sentence. His head snapped sharply to the side, staggering him, pain lighting up through the whole left side of his face. It took a moment to understand what had happened, but when it sunk in that Dad had hit him, the only reaction he really had was acceptance. If Dad wanted to beat him to pulp, he would take it. He had earned it, he had royally fucked up and what happened now would be all his fault and nothing less than what he deserved._

__

_"You're what? Sorry?" Dad prompted cruelly, grabbing Dean's shirt by the collar and pulling him forward so he could tower menacingly over him. "You're damn right you are. How could you lose your brother?"_

__

_Those tears started to splash down, even though he was biting into his lip hard enough to make it bleed. He had thought he was prepared for this, ready for Dad's scorn and fury, but he had been wrong. How it could even be possible for him to feel worse, he didn't know, but he was managing it. Dean just wanted to crawl away and hide so he didn't have to see the way Dad was looking at him, hear his words tearing him apart. Since he couldn't, he could only lower his head and keep his eyes down, try to show how sorry he was with submission._

__

_"I was just out for a little while, Sam was just doing his homework. I didn't think anything would happen. I made sure the room was secure," Dean explained haltingly, despising the weak tremor in his voice. He could have mentioned that he had left to do some manual labor at a local construction site since they were flat broke and needed food, but it didn't matter at the moment. It didn't really matter at all, it didn't change what that decision had cost them._

__

_Dad released him with a shove, Dean's back hitting the wall hard enough to knock his breath out of his lungs._

__

_"You didn't think? Yeah, I got that," Dad retorted snidely._

__

_The Dean of now seemed to sink inside himself and it was really him, the eighteen year old Dean, an observer no longer. A brief, careful glance at Dad told him quickly that he didn't look any different to him. Dean huddled against the wall, remembering what had happened next, afraid that it was all going to change. Waiting for it to be awful and horrible like it had been with the shtriga._

__

_What he recalled was Dad stepping toward him, fists clenched and eyes dark with intent, but then he seemed to see something in his cowering son that shocked him out of it. His eyes had filled with disgust and disappointment, but it didn't seem to be directed at Dean this time. Then Dad had just sighed and stepped away again, holding out a bandanna for Dean's bleeding lip._

__

_At least, that's how he remembered it._

__

_He certainly didn't remember Dad stepping forward to punch him again, this time square in the nose, breaking it with a sharp sound that seemed to reverberate with splintering agony right into his brain. Dean's head was driven back against the wall, rebounding hard enough that he fell forward on shaky legs. Dad just shoved him back with a well placed punch to his chest, Dean bouncing off the wall again to fall to his knees. The pain in his chest was making it even harder for him to breathe and it had already been a challenge with blood pouring down his face and throat from his nose._

__

_"You just don't learn, do you, Dean?' Dad growled from above him, a cruel hand latching into his hair to shove his head back to the point where his tendons started to scream in alarm. "I thought we cleared this up in Fort Douglas, but I guess it just didn't sink into that worthless brain of yours. You're only good for one thing, if you can't do that, why should I keep a failure around? Man, all the times I saved you when I should have just let you die, saved us all the hassle. Why bother trying to teach you anything when you can't do anything right? Well since you're still here, I'll just haves to try harder," he said menacingly._

__

_Dean met Dad's eyes with pained resignation. He remembered the first punch, he remembered the shove, but he took it as his due, even while he was yet again confused that it hadn't been worse. Now he knew without any doubt that every memory he had was suspect. He couldn't even trust his own mind anymore. He wasn't whole anywhere, just fragments of a person, and none of them worth anything._

__

_If there had been hope still alive in Dean, it died when Dad's fist came back down again._

__

###### 

When the phone rang, John snatched it up before the second ring could sound. "Bobby?" he asked, cringing at the desperation in his voice.

It had been just over two hours since he'd talked to Bobby, every second spent researching or trying to settle his son. Dean was clearly having another nightmare, had been for a while now, and it was John hurting him again. He wasn't asking him to stop this time. He was just apologizing over and over. John swung between wanting to cry and wanting to punch the wall down. In the end, he did neither. He had tried to offer Dean some soothing platitudes, but the sound of his voice just seemed to make it worse. So he had returned to his research.

Besides, Sammy had it covered and he was far more adept at it than him. He hadn't moved from Dean's side for anything beyond bathrooms breaks and to dampen the washrag he'd been running over Dean's face and neck. His eldest son was sweating profusely even though it was close to cold inside, his skin hot and feverish. John wouldn't say he was exactly happy about that, but it did reinforce his growing certainty that Dean had been attacked.

"Yeah, it's me." Bobby sounded grim and John steeled himself for what was going to follow. Either Bobby hadn't found anything, or he did and it was bad. Real bad. "I have some news, but it ain't good. I need you to check Dean's head, just past the hairline. You're looking for something like a bruise, shaped like a fingerprint."

John was already moving towards Dean's bed, his son still twitching and grimacing at the images in his head. Propping the phone between his ear and shoulder, John placed his hand on Dean's sweaty forehead to hold him still and used the other to brush aside his short, damp hair. He saw it almost immediately, near Deans' right temple. It was a virulent red, easy to see now that he was looking for it, but it had been invisible and protected by Dean's hair.

"It's here," John answered, releasing his hold on Dean's head, both elated and devastated all at the same time.

"Damn," Bobby breathed, silent for a moment. John was about to not so gently urge Bobby to spill when he continued. "It's a rathra. Same family as a mara, but even more rare. Likes to feed off the more unpleasant emotions of their victims; depression, loss, guilt, you get the picture. Once they touch a person, they form some sort of mental link so they can feed and basically poison them, attacking them with hallucinations, reality distortions, until it gets so bad that the poor son of a bitch kills themselves. The rathra takes the soul." Bobby paused again. "John, as best I can tell, no one survives once a rathra has them. If they don't manage to off themselves, they just waste away," he concluded regretfully.

"How do we fight it, Bobby?" John demanded, his eyes glued to his suffering son, still working through what Bobby had told him. His soul? That thing was actually after his soul? Just when he thought he'd run across the worse things in the world, he always managed to find another that upped the ante.

"Are you not listening? You don't fight it because you can't. Even if you managed to find it, it would be pointless. These things are invulnerable," Bobby stated.

John shook his head forcefully even though Bobby couldn't see it. "Not fighting isn't in my vocabulary, Bobby. Give me something. It's Dean, dammit!" he commanded harshly, almost approaching panic. He wasn't going to have it confirmed that it was something supernatural and then be told he couldn't stop it.

"I'm well aware of who we're talking about John and that's part of the issue here. Look, the older texts say that the victim can kill it through the link they have, but it's near impossible. Sounds like it involves beating it at its own game, feeding it stuff it can't handle, poison the bitch right back." Bobby grew quiet then, his voice now carrying a gray thread of sadness.

"I'm sorry, I love that boy like he's my own, but I'm not sure he's going to be up for that. Even without the help of a rathra infecting his mind, Dean isn't exactly the poster child for self esteem. He's strong, no doubt about that, but this might be beyond what he can do. The rathra's attacking him where he's weakest. The stuff it's feeding on? Those feelings were already there, that's how it found him," Bobby explained.

He wanted to deny it. John wanted to tell Singer to shut his mouth or he would shut it for him next time he saw him, but he couldn't. Because Bobby was right. Dean could take a beating, Dean could be up and running with his leg half torn off, he could still fight with blood running into his eyes, but a harsh word from him or Sammy tore the boy apart. Dean had a big soft heart, something he shared with Mary, but he was living in a world that wasn't soft. That hard shell he'd built up around him didn't really keep him safe, it just kept it all inside, festering like acid in the steel trap of his memory. Dean would forgive a physical pain, wouldn't even really think about it again, but it was the words he would never, ever forget. And there had been too many words said, and even more left unsaid, the ones that mattered.

That awful, horrible thing was using that against him, doing who knew what to his kid while he lay there defenseless and sick in his bed. It wasn't going to get his son.

"He won't have to do it alone, we're going to help him." John knew emotions weren't his strong suit, but he would learn and he would learn fast. Sammy was an expert at them, he could just follow his youngest's lead and help Dean fight.

Bobby scoffed. "You're going to help him? John, who the hell you think made him this way? He didn't come out of the womb with no self worth, that's on you. So how exactly are you going to reverse years of psychological damage in a couple of days? Because that's about all you have left at this point, if he doesn't manage to take care of it sooner. That poison will just burn through him, eat him up from the inside out if he doesn't fight back."

"I don't know, Bobby," John grumbled, feeling the bite and sting of Bobby's words, knowing they were true. He had no defense and he wasn't even going to try to mount one. "But I have to try. Is there anything that will help?"

"No," Bobby answered bluntly. "You can't kill it, no one outside can. There's no way to break the link, clear out the poison. Dean has to do this. You and Sam can help him to try and find his way back, find a reason to fight, but at the end of it all, only Dean has the power to do it. And he's going to have to fight a hell of an uphill battle with only a straw for a weapon. The shit going through his head….everything he thought he knew is being twisted, everyone he thought cared about him is being used against him. Every bit of hope he has is being systematically destroyed. These rathras are nasty things, they take sadism to a whole new level."

John released a long sigh, Bobby's words burning through him like his blood was on fire. He was discouraged by what had been revealed, but he also believed in his son. If anyone could fight this thing, it was Dean. He just needed some incentive.

"All right. Well, thanks Bobby. I'll uh…I'll let you know how it turns out," John offered, hoping that he wasn't going to be calling Bobby back to tell him that he'd lost Dean.

"You do that. Call if there's anything else you need. I'm not giving up over here, I'm going to keep looking," Bobby promised. John smiled at that. "And John?" Bobby prompted before he could hang up. "I know you and Dean don't like to talk about feelings and all that mushy crap, but you need to make an exception here. And if he makes it through this, it would be nice if you could both learn something from it and stop hiding everything away. Just a suggestion. I'm not going to hold my breath, though, so I'm not disappointed later."

With that, Bobby hung up the phone. John let what he said echo through him. He may have wanted to knock Singer on his ass more often than he'd ever wanted to buy him a beer, but damn if the man wasn't insightful as hell. Painfully so.

John stood, feeling better now that he had something to aim for, a path to take. This was what he did and it was like putting on a comfortable old coat. It was perilous and frightening and impossible at best, but the Winchesters excelled at this shit.

He was back at Dean's bedside, Sammy looking up at him with hopeful eyes. John smiled. "We know what it is and we're going to get your brother back, Sam," he promised.

Sam just nodded. "What do we have to do?"

This is where John faltered a bit. He knew the what, just wasn't sure of the how. Sitting down next to Dean, he began to fill Sam in on what Bobby had told him. Together, they would come up with a plan. They would save Dean.

###### 

They knew what she was. She felt a frisson of something that could only be fear, but it was just a guess. It had been a very long time since she'd felt that particular emotion. She wasn't sure why she would feel it now. The boy was hers, he was more than half dead already. It was laughable to think that his family honestly thought they could help him fight her off. Humans were such arrogant fools. Though they did taste sublime. Only use for them really.

Sublime.

This Dean was that. He was so much closer to the edge now, fingertips gripping and faltering as she continued to inundate him with his own memories mixed and tainted with her own special blend. She had never tasted anything so delicious, so complete.

Fight her off….silly, silly humans. She would really like to see that broken, pathetic, twisted thing on that bed try.

###### 

TBC...


	9. Chapter 9

_We're all architects of our own private hell_  
 _No one can hurt us_  
 _like we hurt ourselves_

_"Bones" by Young Guns_

###### 

Waking Dean was as difficult as John had expected it to be and the end result was not quite what they had hoped for. Yes, Dean's eyes were open and they veered between rolling lazily in their direction and jerking wildly to an empty spot in the room like he was seeing something, but there was no other indication that he was actually there with them. His eyes didn't seem to focus, the pupil dilated so much that there was only a tiny line of burning green amidst the bloodshot whites. His limbs twitched and shuddered, the sweat pouring off of him dampening the bed sheets. The things he had been mumbling in his sleep just continued like he had never left the nightmare.

It wasn't the most encouraging sight.

The entire plan he and Sam had come up with had involved talking to Dean and it was already failing just a few seconds in. John had acknowledged that it might not be as easy as that. If he was very honest, he knew it could not possibly be that simple, but Sam had been the one to give voice to the concern. Sam had been the one sitting with Dean, hearing the awful pleas, apologies and pained moans come out of his mouth, seeing his brother's body twist and flinch as if taking blows, Sammy's own attempts to soothe Dean either ignored at best or completely unnoticed. So if anyone knew that talking to Dean was a good, but incredibly naïve, thought, it was Sam.

So Sammy had demanded some sort of alternative, something else to try if what they did crashed and burned. John didn't have another one to give him and all he could do upon admitting that was to try and keep the fear and panic from showing through his faltering mask of grim determination. Bobby had made it clear; Dean had to save himself. The best they could do was provide support and that was not a role either of them were suited for. That had always been Dean's job and he did it brilliantly. John was good to rely on when it was life or death on a hunt, but for everything else? He had Dean for it and he gladly, and so selfishly, left him to it. Sammy on the other hand had been relegated to the baby spot his whole life; protected, cherished and ordered around. He would have Dean's back in thick and thin, but he hadn't really been allowed to be the strong one, but he knew his youngest had it in him.

He would do his best to fit himself into a role he was no longer suited for, but really this would probably come down to Sammy. So John had offered up his skills in what he was good at.

"Then I'll track this thing down and make it release Dean. A life for a life," he had said grimly.

Sam hadn't been impressed. "Thought you said it was immortal," Sam asked suspiciously.

"Nothing's immortal, Sammy. You just have to find the right weapon."

No matter what Bobby had said, John believed that, he truly did, but to find that weapon required something they didn't have; time. So plan A had to work. They had to get Dean in the fight, or it was over. The escalating devastation crimping Sammy's face into pained lines made it clear that if he lost Dean, he was going to lose Sam too. Maybe not in body, but Sam was never going to recover from it. John didn't even want to consider his own feelings on it, he couldn't risk losing his focus. That ability to shove things that mattered aside made most people think he was an asshole, but it was the only way he could function on all cylinders. If he lost Dean, lost Mary's baby, he wouldn't be able to….No. It wasn't the time. Push it away, bury it, padlock it up, just don't let it in. Wait until it's fixed and then he could fall apart in solitude all he wanted.

"Dean? Can you hear me?" Sam was asking, pulling John out of his thoughts. He was speaking low and gently, one hand resting on Dean's perspiring forehead.

Dean didn't seem to hear Sam, continuing his mantra of slurred apologies that could only be heard when leaning in close to him. Sam looked up helplessly at John, asking for direction, asking for him to fix it.

John decided to give it his best shot. "Dean!" he thundered at his catatonic son, the sudden shout in the silence making Sam jump. The sounds falling out of Dean's mouth ceased abruptly, his eyes widening in fear. "Look at me, son," he ordered. Dean didn't at first, seem to be fighting the command, but then his head swung towards John, his eyes meeting his cautiously. Finally, there was a bit of awareness there, something that John could work with, he noticed with relief.

"Dad," Dean gasped out, his normally strong deep voice now thin and reedy, almost childlike. "I'm so sorry, Dad, I didn't mean for it to happen. I'm so sorry." His head started to turn again while he continued to say that he was sorry, the words starting to blur back together. John was losing him again.

"No Dean, you stay with me!" he urged, reaching out to grab Dean's shoulder. The violence with which Dean flinched away from him almost sent the boy flying off the bed, but his eyes were focused and on him again. Dean was on his side, his body curled in to itself as if to protect all his soft parts from injury, staring up at John. It cut John right through his heart to see his son look at him with such fear, his body cowering away from him in the expectation of pain. He couldn't decide if it would have been better to leave him tied up, seeing him limp and defeated, or the way he was trying to make himself as small as possible.

"Why are you sorry Dean?" John asked, maintaining the command in his voice with some effort. Dean seemed to be responding to it like he'd hoped. Yes, he was terrified of John, but at least he was somewhat cognizant of what was happening. It was a start.

"I forgot what you taught me and made you do it again. Always messing up, never getting it right. Forgot it, just put it right out of my mind. I've pushed a lot of things somewhere dark and buried them there, but never just forgot, but I forgot that. So sorry, Dad. Sorry Sammy. I forgot, I forgot. So dumb, sorry. I forgot, sorry, sorry, I forgot," Dean whispered, the words running together and said with a strange cadence, but discernible all the same.

John absorbed those words, trying to decipher what they could mean. Bobby had said the rathra twisted people's realities, their memories, and used them against the victim. He had heard Dean begging for John to stop in his sleep, he was utterly petrified by him now. It didn't take a genius to know what Dean might be experiencing in those nightmares.

"Dean, what did you forget?" John prompted, wanting so badly to reach out and rest a comforting hand on Dean's head, but he knew it would just frighten Dean more.

"It doesn't matter!" Dean shouted suddenly, sounding more lucid and like himself. "I told you, I got it now, you win. I know what I have to do, you just won't let me! Stop torturing me, I don't need to hear it again." He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, face contorting like he was in pain.

"Maybe I do, Dean," John replied, inwardly flinching at the confirmation that this interrogation was just tearing Dean up more. Torture he had said.

That wave of anger drained out of Dean as quickly as it had come, and he was reduced back to the shuddering ball of flesh curled up on the bed. He sighed in pained resignation, his gaze fixed on the sheets below him.

"The lesson. Buried it away, hurt too much, but just made it all worse. Sorry Dad, so sorry. Didn't mean to be such a failure, always try so hard, but I just never get it right. I just want to be good. Should have just killed me, should have left me there. So sorry, tried so hard," Dean explained, quiet again, his eyes starting to glaze over.

"Dad, what is he talking about?" Sam asked, looking so helplessly confused and worried that John couldn't help but touch him briefly on the shoulder.

John shook his head in bewilderment. "I have no idea," was all he could say because he truly didn't. Dean was starting to lose awareness completely, his eyes almost closed now.

"Dean!" he barked, feeling panic starting to swell within him when Dean didn't react to it this time.

Taking a deep, regretful breath, John reached across and took a firm grasp on the tension tight shoulder of his eldest. There was no need to do anything else. Dean reacted just as strongly as he did before, yanking out of John's grasp and actually landing on the floor this time. John was around the bed and kneeling beside Dean before his son could react any further. Dean took one look at his proximity and clenched his eyes shut with a whimper, trying to curl back up into the same fetal position he'd had on the bed. John couldn't watch him do that another time, he just couldn't. His son didn't cower, he didn't show weakness. Dean was the strongest person he'd ever known and this thing had taken that from him.

"The lesson, Dean. What was it?" John was leaning over Dean, knew he had to look threatening, but it seemed to be what Dean was answering to. He hated doing it, causing his wounded son more pain and fear, but he had to get Dean present, break him out of the horrible things running through his head.

"S'okay, Dad, I remember it now. I'm worthless, almost got Sammy killed. I deserved it, I did, I was just weak and made it go away. But I remember now, I won't forget!" Dean cried out, his voice muffled from the barrier his arms made over his head.

"Dammit Dean, what did you forget? Tell me straight!" John ordered, leaning down closer to Dean's shrinking form.

"Why are you doing this to me? I don't understand, I already told you that I know it all now and I know how to fix it. Please, why?" Dean pleaded. "Just want to tear out my heart, I can't take the pain anymore," he added faintly, curling himself in even tighter.

"Dad!" He heard Sam protest at the rough treatment and the resulting response from Dean, but he ignored him, just like he was ignoring everything inside him that was screaming at him to stop doing this to Dean, that he was just hurting him. They were getting close, he could see it in the one eye that Dean revealed from between his arms, rolling up to look at him now.

"You tell me right now. What did you forget?" John asked harshly.

Dean shook his head helplessly, but he started to speak in a rush. "Couldn't even sit in a chair, so pathetic, not good for anything. Couldn't shoot the shtriga. Couldn't even remember the lesson. Thought it was extra laps, more training, cleaning the guns, but that wouldn't work, right? You had to do it, tried to help me. Had to bleed for it, had to break. Had to see it, feel it, so I would remember, but I didn't. Sorry, so sorry. In every way. I'm a sorry, worthless piece of garbage, just like you said. Should have just killed me then, so sorry."

That eerie childlike voice coming out of his grown son had already been creeping him out, but the words that just came out filled him with horrified realization. Dean was talking about Fort Douglas, when the shtriga had come for Sam. He thought….fuck, he actually thought John had beaten him for letting the creature at Sammy. Dean had only been ten years old, John hadn't laid a hand on him. He got laps, thirty extra minutes of sparring and conditioning and all the weapon cleaning duties for a month. John had only done that because Dean seemed to need it so he could earn forgiveness he didn't need. John hadn't blamed him. Just one look at the kid in the rearview mirror on the way to Pastor Jim's, one glimpse at the torture he was putting himself through just sitting there in silence, staring at Sammy's head resting on his lap, told John that Dean was punishing himself more than John ever could.

Besides, he was well aware who was at fault for that one. He had left his children alone when he knew there was a shtriga on the loose. He had done that, not Dean.

"Dean, do you think I hit you that night with the shtriga?" John asked tightly, needing to hear it confirmed.

Dean's head ducked under his arm again like he expected John to do it again. "I deserved it," was all he said.

He'd been so quiet that John had forgotten he was there, but suddenly Sam was in his face, shoving him away from Dean and standing tall in front of his fallen brother. John looked up at Sam in confusion, understanding exactly what was going on when he saw the incredulous anger twisting his young face, his fists held tightly beside him. Sammy looked ready to do battle.

"You beat him?" Sam asked in furious whisper.

"No of course not, Sammy! The rathra is making him see things wrong, I didn't touch him," John insisted.

"He seems pretty sure that you did," Sam countered, not relaxing his stance.

Sighing, John sat back on his haunches. "Sam, we don't have time for this now. We need to keep him talking so we can set him straight. That thing is feeding off him right now, we have to get Dean seeing the truth. If we can get him there, he might be able to fight it and find better memories, ones that it can't feed off of."

Sam snorted bitterly. "Like he has better memories. His whole life has been a nightmare, the stuff he can remember anyway."

That John could answer to. "That's not true, Sammy. I promise you, Dean has a lot of good memories," he assured him. As least he really hoped he did. He knew Dean was a master at hiding his real emotions, but John had always thought he could see through that to what he was really feeling. Turns out, that had been a pipe dream. But he could remember the times when Dean had seemed truly happy, if needed, he would recite them to remind Dean.

"Did you ever?" Sam asked, still not backing down.

"Did I what?" John asked, already knowing exactly what Sam meant, but needing the additional moment to decide if he was going to be honest or not. Looking down at Dean, seeing that he was watching them again, he knew that he had to go with the truth. If the rathra had tortured him with that memory, then he could only imagine how bad it had made it. He had to tell it exactly how it went to show Dean that the things in his head now were not real. Sam was going to flip out and it wasn't going to be pretty, but it had to be done.

"Hit him? Outside training?" Sam clarified with narrowed eyes.

"Yes. Once," John stated frankly, staring Sam right in the eye, jaw clenching as he rode the wave of guilt that rolled over him at the thought.

He was damn sure Sam was going to hit him, his youngest son moving into position almost imperceptively, his eyes going wide with rage, but Dean's tremulous, "Don't tell Sammy," stopped all further movement. "Don't tell him. He already thinks I'm so weak and spineless, he can't know how bad I fucked up. Between you and me, Dad, like I promised. Said I'd never tell, you can't either."

"Dean!" Sammy looked like he was torn between hugging his brother close and taking a gun to John. He opted for the first. He dropped down next to Dean and pulled him in. Dean stiffened in his hold, but didn't fight him off. Resting his head against Dean's, Sam whispered, "I don't think you're weak or spineless, Dean. You're the strongest and bravest person I know. You're my awesome big brother. You have to come back to us, please."

Dean just held himself even tighter, still not attempting to extricate himself from Sam, but trying to keep from sinking into his brother, to not touch him any more than he was already. "It's okay to let go, Sam. I'm not worth this. You don't have to try anymore. None one does. Too broken, can't fix it. Just throw me away," Dean said dully.

"No way, Dean. Not in a million years," Sammy vowed vehemently, his own tears dropping off his chin to the join the sweat in Dean's hair.

For a moment, the three Winchesters just sat there, listening to Dean's uneven gasping breaths, all of them shell shocked and broken in their own ways. John gazed upon the sight of his two boys, the image burning its way onto his brain, so afraid that he was going to lose this fight and never see it again, his boys together. He'd been getting somewhere with Dean by forcing him to talk about the poisoned memories that were attacking him in his sleep, he needed to stay along that path.

"Dean?" John prompted, wishing he could let the moment of peace stretch on just a bit longer, but they had to get things moving.

Dean's head turned to him slightly. He was still with them, he was still hearing him.

"Can you tell me what you remember about the shtriga?" John asked.

Dean shook his head violently, the top of his skull cracking against Sam's chin. Sam just tightened his hold. "No, can't tell Sammy. Don't want him to know," he whispered.

John sighed. He had another fight on his hands now and it was going to be almost as bad as trying to get Dean to talk to him.

"I'll go," Sam said suddenly.

John looked at him in shock and disbelief, unable to believe he'd just heard what he thought he did. Sam was staring at the wall, frustration and resignation competing over his face.

"He won't talk about it if I'm here and you need to clear him up. I don't like it. I hate leaving him here like this." The 'with you' was unspoken, but heavily implied. "But if that's what needs to happen, then I'll do it. You just…you be careful. And we will talk about this when it's over," Sam added firmly.

John just nodded dumbly, still amazed that the son that argued with him about everything and anything, especially when it came to Dean, was handing over the reins. The trust he was putting in him hit John deeply, rejuvenating that part of him that was starting to believe that he and Sam would never see eye to eye again. At least when it really mattered they could still come together.

All the more reason not to fuck this up with Dean. Sam would never forgive him if he lost him.

Sam slowly started to unwind his arms from Dean, moving to try and stand him up, presumably to get him back on the bed, but Dean grasped his shirt with a hand, his knees buckling. Sam lowered him back down to the floor and settled him against the mattress, Dean slumping into a dejected heap when he was released. Sam looked dissatisfied with his brother's position, his long fingers twitching with the urge to do more.

"Okay," he said, turning to look at John. "I'll be right out there. Holler if you need me and don't leave me out there too long. I won't…," Sam paused, glancing back at Dean, his eyes squeezing closed in denial of the sight. "Just let me back in soon, if he's ready, okay?"

John understood. It was killing Sammy to leave Dean like this, but Dean needed it from him right now.

"You got it. Thanks Sam," John said, meaning it with every atom of his body. Sam didn't have to go quietly, he was making the choice to. John wouldn't forget that.

Sam nodded, his eyes finally opening again. He kneeled back down by Dean. "I love you Dean."

Dean smiled, but it was agonizing in its sadness, only emptiness filling his eyes. "No you don't. How could you? Who could? But it's okay," he replied simply.

John could see that the words that bit deeply into his heart had crushed Sam, a tormented blend of guilt, confusion, anger and helplessness flashing across his features. They were all justified. Dean knew Sam loved him, he worshipped his older brother. It was crazy to think that Sam didn't. The rathra had gutted Dean of everything he had faith in, there was no greater proof than this. It looked like Sam was going to argue, but the sound that came out was choked and harsh, nowhere near a word. He shook his head and ran out of the room. John could hear something hitting the wall. He was betting it was Sam's fist.

Since Sammy had stood up and done what needed to be done, John would do the same so he didn't have to spend too long away from his brother.

"Dean. The shtriga. What happened?" he prodded.

Dean wasn't hiding his face now and the sheer destruction John could see bleeding out of his eyes made John want to just hold him close. He rarely did that anymore, wasn't sure when he stopped, but for years now, physical contact had been reduced to pats on the back, a ruffle of the hair, the required hands on to stitch wounds, or help someone walk. A hug from John was so foreign to Dean that whenever he did, his boy would stiffen and place his hands slowly, awkwardly on John's back. It never felt right. Sammy hugged Dean all the time and he accepted it with easy grace, would even hug him back before poking at him or rolling his eyes and making some comment about Sammy being a girl in that fond tone he reserved for mocking his brother.

But the only times he had ever seen Dean initiate an embrace that didn't involve the opposite sex was with Sammy. Never with John because, without consciously doing so, he had made it something they didn't do anymore. And Dean followed John's lead in all things. So no hug, Dean was uncomfortable enough.

"Do I have to?" Dean asked pleadingly. "You were there."

"Yes, you have to."

Dean sighed, his breath hitching on a sob, his head lolling back against the mattress. He looked so tired, so sick. His skin was flushed along the cheeks, but he was completely white otherwise. He was still sweating profusely, trembling from exhaustion and weakness. The bandages on his arm and neck were sodden and should probably be changed, but John didn't think Dean would allow anyone to get that close.

"You just told me the truth. That I was too dumb to sit in a chair, too useless to follow a simple order. You helped me see that what I remembered was wrong, that what I had thought happened was just a lie I told myself. I almost got Sammy killed, that deserved more punishment than what I told myself had happened. I deserved the beating, but I don't even care about that, it was just hearing how much I had failed you, how disappointed you were. You shouldn't have stopped, you should have just finished it then," Dean explained, strangely calm and placid beneath all the pain and ruin in those words.

John couldn't stop himself from grabbing Dean then, not letting up when Dean flinched, eyes going wide in panic. John's big hands closed around Dean's cheeks so that he could look him right in the eye.

"That didn't happen, Dean. I didn't touch you. What you remembered, what you really remembered is right. I gave you more chores, I made you train harder. I didn't even really say anything about it. I have never thought you a failure, ever," John said softly, but firmly.

Dean was shaking his head and John released him, sitting back again. "Why are you lying? You don't have to keep trying to make me better, I know I can't get better. Just stop," he whispered brokenly, his head dropping limply to loll against his chest, exhaustion starting to get to him. Or maybe it was the rathra trying to pull him down again.

"I'm not lying Dean. Why would I? If that had happened, and I really was that angry with you, made that your punishment, then why wouldn't I just agree that it went down like that? A creature is doing this to you, Dean, it's making you see things that aren't true, twisting up your memories. I swear to you, I have never beaten you. I never would," he promised.

"You told Sammy you did," Dean reminded him quickly, his head rolling back again so he could see him.

Had John been in a better frame of mind, he might have almost found that amusing. Trust his son to be out of his mind with a supernatural attack, but still be lucid enough to retain what was going on around him. As it was, he knew it was time to talk about something he never meant to bring up again. Because he was a coward. He couldn't face up to what he'd done then and had let two years go by without ever acknowledging it. He'd had no idea that it had affected Dean so deeply, hurt him so badly that it was being used to slowly kill him now, but it shouldn't have mattered. His son deserved better than having it brushed under the rug like it never happened. It was time to follow his own advice and man up.

"I did hit you once, Dean. One punch. When Sammy ran away." Dean's face clouded over at that, like John had just confirmed everything. He reached out and grasped Dean hand before he could pull away. Dean startled at the contact, but didn't try to jerk away, so John continued.

"I shouldn't have done it and I have never felt worse about myself than when I did. I never told you how sorry I was, I was too ashamed to bring it up. I still am, but I want you to know, I am so sorry for that, son. There's no excuse for why I did it, I was just so scared and angry and I didn't get control of it before I saw you and you took the brunt of it. I don't expect your forgiveness, I won't even ask for it. That's the punishment I deserve, to live with what I did, know that I hurt you when you were at you were at your lowest, scared and worried for your brother and already feeling so guilty and responsible for it," John explained, fighting to keep Dean looking at him as he started to pull against his hold.

"No, that's not true! You broke my nose, my ribs, tried to choke me!" Dean cried out in denial.

John swallowed down the bile that rose up in his throat at the thought of Dean actually seeing him do that to him, believing it. Rationally, he knew Dean wasn't responsible, that the rathra was causing this, but the irrational side couldn't help but think that if Dean believed John could do that then he'd done an ever worse job as a father than he already thought.

"Dean, if I had done that, then Sammy would have seen the bruises. You would have been walking and sitting funny to protect your ribs. Let me bring him back in and you can ask him. You can ask Sam if there had been anything wrong with you when we found him in Flagstaff. Okay, bud?" John asked, releasing his grip on Dean's hand, backing away to give his gasping and trembling son the space he needed.

Dean's eyes were flicking back and forth between John and the space beside him as he tried to reconcile what John had said with what Dean had seen. He looked so confused, so lost as he tried to sort out the implanted images in his head from the ones that had always been there. Finally, they settled back on John, something there that hadn't been before, just a tiny little bit of light amidst all that darkness. Hope.

"Bring Sam," he said huskily.

Sammy was back in almost immediately once John called for him, his brows drawing down when he saw how close John was to Dean, but he kept quiet about it. He just knelt down beside them, placing a hand on Dean's bandaged arm gently.

"Sammy, when we came to get you in Flagstaff, did Dean have any injuries that you could see?" John asked.

Sam looked perplexed at the question, but he answered readily enough. "There was a bruise on his cheek." The dawning awareness chased the confusion away and the curious look changed to a knowing glare that he leveled at John.

"Anything else?" John prompted.

Sam was silent for a moment as he thought back to that time, but then he was shaking his head. "No, that was it. Dean said he got in a fight at school, but he didn't, did he?" he added bitterly, directed at John.

Dean saved him from a reply. "My nose wasn't broken?" Dean asked Sam, looking up at him like he had just told him that it was raining cheeseburgers.

"No it wasn't, Dean," Sam replied, smiling gently at him.

Dean said nothing for a long while and they followed suit to give him time to process. He was staring down at his hands, at the cuts the glass had left, but it didn't really look like he was seeing them. He was somewhere in his head, but not like he was before. He was still with them.

"You said it was something supernatural doing this to me?" he asked abruptly in a tight choked voice, like he was afraid that if he said it too loud it would clue it in.

"Yeah, a rathra. Same family as a mara, but instead of feeding on fear, it feeds on the kind of stuff you've been feeling," John explained, trying to reign in his excitement. It was working. "One of them touched you at some point and poisoned you. It's making you hallucinate, messing with your memory and making you believe things that aren't real," John explained.

Dean looked both doubtful and optimistic. "I don't remember anything touching me," he said.

"Maybe not, but you've got a mark on your head that confirms it. This isn't you, kiddo. You are being attacked," John confirmed.

"But…," Dean started, then faltered and gave up, just shaking his head. "Okay. So what do we do about it?" he asked.

This is where things were going to get tough.

"You have to fight it Dean. If it can only feed off of depressing shit, then you have to feed it the stuff it can't handle. When it starts to twist you up, take you down a bad path, you have to fight and find a good one. As Bobby said, you need to poison the bitch back," John explained, finally starting to feel like they had turned a corner.

Dean looked at them both with anxious eyes, then back down at his hands, his huddled shoulders curving even more inward.

"I don't know if I can," Dean said despondently. "I just…I still feel so bad. I don't know how I can stand up to it when I feel like I deserve all this, when I still just want to get my hands on a gun, or a knife, or anything and just end it. How am I supposed to feed it good things, happy things, when I can't think of anything like that?" he asked, looking up at John with big, sad eyes. "All I can think about are all the times I messed up, every single time I failed, or didn't measure up. Those aren't from this rat-whatever, that's all from me. I don't have the right ammunition to fight this, Dad, I just don't."

Defeat and shame was etched into every line of Dean's body, the desperation in his words stealing away John's small moment of relief. If Dean wouldn't fight, then it was over. John would try to stop it, he would hunt the rathra down and do whatever he could to make it let Dean go, but he didn't have high hopes that it would work. No wonder very few victims survived a rathra, they completely broke down and stole away the fight of the only person that could hurt them. How was he supposed to give that back to Dean?

"Dean, seriously? This is how you're going to go out? Whining and crying like a two year old that got his toy taken away?"

Sam's chiding voice snatched both John's and Dean's attention, John reacting with indignant anger, Dean with wounded shock, but Sam just crossed his arms and shook his head.

"That's not the Dean I know. The Dean I know would fight, would tell this thing to sit on it sideways and twist. He's faced werewolves, black dogs, banshees, poltergeists with a smile and a middle finger," Sam said with a smile.

He had all of Dean's attention now and he leaned in closer, the derision bleeding out of Sam's expression to leave only love and pride.

"My Dean would take a bullet for anyone he thinks is innocent. My Dean would do absolutely anything to make sure his family is safe. My Dean makes sure the job is done before he rests, even if that means no sleep, no food and no taking fcare of his own injuries. My Dean is so smart, he can outmaneuver CPS, a school principal, an entire hospital and the police all in one day. My Dean is loved and admired by his family, even if they don't say it nearly enough." Dean broke down sobbing then, burying his head on Sam's shoulder, but Sam wasn't done. "My Dean has taken care of me my whole life, has tried to give me everything I could possibly need without any thought to what he needs. My Dean, my brother, is the most amazing person I know. And beneath what this thing is doing to you? You are still my Dean. It's time it knows who it's fucking with," Sam finished, griping Dean tightly. The sincerity and feeling in what he had said to Dean was clear and true.

John regarded Sam with something approaching awe as he held his shaking brother close. Sam had grown up while he'd been away on all those hunts, raised by his other son, and he was on his way to being quite a man. If what Sam had just done didn't work, then he couldn't imagine what would.

When Dean raised his head off of Sam's shoulder, there were still tears drenching his face, but Dean was there again. He still looked like he had some way to go before he was his normal self, but the possibility of it was back, which was a far cry from where he'd been before. John breathed out a sigh of relief and triumph, so proud of his boys that he almost wanted to scream with it.

"I'm going to get that bitch," Dean swore, his gaze hardening.

If the determination and promise of pain now firming his jaw and filling his eyes meant anything, the rathra was as good as dead.

###### 

TBC....


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references another story I have written called "Left Unsaid". It doesn't require previous knowledge of that story, just including it so you can check it out if you're curious. Okay, shameless self promotion over!

_These voices choke away the light  
 _And they infect me with their lies  
 _They try to take away my life  
 _They give me one way out____

_"Break the World" by Nine Lashes_

###### 

Dean had fallen asleep, well more like passed out, soon after his breakthrough. He had fought the energy sapping lethargy and tried to put on a brave face when he saw that he was losing the battle, but his fear was tangible. He didn't come out and say it, but it was obvious he was afraid he would lose control once back inside his head and vulnerable to the rathra. Both John and Sam promised that they would be waiting for him when he came back out and Dean had smiled tremulously at them and told them he would see them later, but they were all putting on a front and there were no delusions about it.

Sitting beside the bed and watching Dean's face grimace and contort in his sleep, John couldn't help but feel like he'd sent Dean into a lion's den with raw meat tied around his throat and his hands tied behind his back. He felt so useless, furious and frustrated that there wasn't anything more he could do to help Dean. It wasn't fair. He felt completely ridiculous thinking that, Mary's murder had started a long unbreakable string of 'not fair' for the Winchesters, but at least they had always had each other to lean on. Dean had no one that could help him now, had to rely on weapons he either didn't have or didn't know how to use; his own flayed self esteem and the tattered trust that his family cared about him.

He could only hope it would be enough.

Sammy sighed from his perch by Dean's side, drawing John's gaze to him. He had always known the boys had a bond far beyond that of most siblings, but he hadn't fully realized until today how important it was to their survival. It had been a revelation seeing Sam bring Dean back from the edge, how he knew exactly what Dean needed to hear, how he had injected those statements with a perfect blend of sincerity, awe and love.

John had been certain that Dean would only respond to his orders, not emotional scenes that he seemed so hell bent on avoiding at all times. He had been wrong.

It was a waiting game now. John and Sam had played their roles, had broken Dean out of the rathra's hold. It was now all up to Dean and, even though he had been lucid and aware of what was happening for the few brief moments they had before he started to drift away, John was well aware that things would be very different when he slept.

He had to believe Dean would make it, had to have faith in his boy even though he couldn't have much faith in anything else. Both of his sons never ceased to amaze them with their ability to survive this harsh life he'd led them to. Dean was going to make it, he was going to be the exception.

He was going to make it.

###### 

_He was tied to a chair, the light from a solitary candle mocking him with its tease of illumination, but only managing to throw shadows around the room. Dean knew where he was immediately, recognized the tiny room, the pain in his body, in his heart. Sam was standing in front of him, knife held loosely in his hand, a playful smile lifting his lips. Just as he knew it then, he knew it now; that wasn't really Sam. That was a ghost infesting his brother, forcing him to torture his big brother._

_He knew he had popped in as his now self this time because the intervention from his family was still with him, the clarity it had given him helping him to see this for what it was; another horrific and painful memory for the rathra to torment him with. This was one of the worst by far, but it wouldn't get him this time. Yes, the external wounds that he had been dealt were as painful now as they were when it was happening, he could feel the wetness of the blood on his skin, the chill of the room sinking into his bones. He could feel the same guilt and despair that Sammy was locked inside his own body, seeing it do all these things to Dean._

_But this time he knew he was being fucked with. He just hoped knowing that would be enough, that he could hold onto it while reliving one of the most horrible events of his life._

_He knew he just had to pull his head out of it, take the memory away from the rathra and force it to something better, and it had seemed easy when talking it over with Sam and Dad. In the thick of it, though, when it all felt so real and visceral, he wasn't sure how to do it. He knew he had to focus, trust his memory, his instincts, and stay aware enough to see when it all started to change and take it over._

_Easy. Right._

_"Did you ever have any real use besides being a free sub par babysitter, Dean?" The thing residing in Sam was asking, pulling him back into the memory. "I mean, as a son, you're pretty worthless. What could possibly be making your Dad proud of you? Your ineptitude at hunting? Your smothering reliance on the two family members you haven't managed to kill yet? The inability to follow anything beyond the most basic orders, the few times you manage to not screw it up? And as a brother?" Sam did a face palm then, shaking his head slowly. "Oh man, don't even get me started. He became more mature than you are now when he hit eight. You're supposed to be a role model? You probably won't even manage to finish high school. Your only friend is your thirteen year old brother, and let's face it, even he doesn't like you all that much. The only thing he's learned from you is how not to be."_

_Even though he'd already heard it before, knew it was coming, Dean flinched again at the contempt and disgust pouring of his little brother. So far, this had all happened, Sam had said all those things. He didn't know how the rathra planned to twist this, he wasn't sure how it possibly could. In his opinion, the creature had made a serious misstep on this one. Being beaten and stabbed by something wearing his brother's face was awful on its own, but really it was the things it had forced out of Sam's mouth that had stuck with him. The knife had left scars, but they were healed and forgotten long ago. Those words still haunted him, still popped into his head at the most inopportune times. While the violence was all the ghost, the words came from Sam's head. Twisted and exaggerated, maybe, but there was a core of truth to it._

_The wounds left by the words would never heal._

_Sam had apologized afterward, had swore that none of it had been true, but Dean knew better. The ghost couldn't make some of that stuff up, it had to come from somewhere. Even though he didn't blame Sammy for it, understood that he had just as many frustrations as any kid his age did, that it was perfectly normal and healthy, it didn't stop it from hurting, from making him doubt._

_So what could the rathra possibly do to make this worse? How much more could it break him down with this memory than he already had been? He didn't know. All he knew was that he really had no interest in finding out._

_There was a problem swiftly arising, though._

_Despite his best efforts to hold onto what Sam had said to him before he passed out and ended up back in this memory, the cruel remarks were tearing him up all over again, making it harder to remember that he had a purpose here, and it didn't involve just sitting here and taking whatever the rathra decided to dish out. He tried to tell himself that the weakness pervading his wounded body and soul wasn't real, that it had already happened and had been dealt with, but he knew that part of the problem was that it was a lie. He hadn't dealt with it, not really. He'd shoved it away and tried to forget it as much as he could, which only made it more powerful when the memory popped back in time from time._

_The famous Dean Winchester coping mechanism. It might get him through the night, but wouldn't stand up for the long term. It would always come back to bite him in the ass at some point._

_"Man, what are you going to do when he leaves? You know Dad doesn't have a lot of use for you once Sammy is gone. It'll just be a matter of time before he takes off too, leaving you high and dry. Really, I'm doing you a favor, Dean. You die now, you don't have to deal with any of that. You can rest in peace thinking your family actually gave a damn about you," Sam said with syrupy and false sympathy._

_Dean glared up at the boy in front of him, not seeing his little brother or the ghost riding him, but the creature creating this. He knew what he was supposed to say next, knew that it was typically smart assed and inciting, remembered that it had set the ghost off into a rage that manifested in it trying to smash Dean's face in. Telling him that Sam had wished that Dean had died instead of Mom. That he hated him._

_Fuck, Dean really didn't want to hear it again, the first time had been enough. It had nearly killed him._

_So he decided to latch onto the small part of him that could still focus, could still remember all the mushy sentiments that Sam had shared with him that had reached through the darkness drowning him and pulled him up for a breath of resuscitating air. Sam had saved him when he could have just let him go. That's what he had to hold on to. He drew in a breath, feeling the stab wounds in his shoulder and torso pull painfully, but it was duller now. He was climbing out of the moment, fighting to see this situation for what it was._

_"All right, you bitch. How about we just stop the games and chat face to face?" he gasped out, a bit disappointed at how weak he sounded, but pleased that at least he was able to speak. He was bleeding to death after all. Be this a dream, memory, whatever, it still felt like he was. "Or is hiding behind a thirteen year old really the best you can do?"_

_Sam's mouth snapped shut in surprise, but it was brief. Soon, a sly, knowing smile spread across his lips, a smile he had never seen, or ever wanted to see, on Sam's face. It was so wrong and out of place, even with the psycho ghost taking over Sam, that Dean was firmly cemented in the reality outside of this place. With no small relief, Dean noted that the pain was gone, the exhaustion swept away like it had never been there at all. He still felt beaten down inside, mired in the certainty that he was a worthless piece of shit, but it wasn't that much worse than how he normally felt. The ropes were still firmly binding him to the chair, but without the agony in his mangled shoulder there to stop him, he could start working on those. He was as ready to fight as he was going to get._

_"Well, you have surprised me yet again, my tasty little hunter. This is truly a first, no one has ever been able to push through my little recreated dramas. Impressive. Futile, but impressive." It was Sam's voice, but the intonation was off, an accent that he couldn't quite place rounding out the words._

_"Well, I do hate being boring and predictable," he answered smoothly, while inwardly he was trying to grasp onto the fleeting memories drifting through his head, needing just one good one to cling to that would help keep him strong. It was hard to think through them, he just kept getting pounded by everything he wished he couldn't remember. He knew it had something to do with the ratha, maybe it was ramping up the attack now the Dean knew what it was._

_"Definitely not two words I would use to describe you, child," the rathra said to him. "Fortunately for me, you are filled with much more delectable delights. So young to feel so old and beaten down. Broken through and through. You have been the most delicious soul I've ever had the opportunity to taste. How kind of you to add a pathetic dash of defiance and hope. It will make the bitterness when you fail all the more enticing."_

_"You aren't getting me," Dean bit out. "I know what you are and I know how to fight you." He was twisting his wrists in the rope, feeling them cut into his skin, but the pain meant nothing to him. He wasn't sure what he was going to do once he was free, but it would make him feel a lot better._

_It laughed then, and it was Sam's happiest, most amused laughed, reserved for those times when Dean did something particularly stupid and was red with embarrassment. It filled Dean with something he hadn't felt in a while; pure, red blooded anger. He was tired of this thing using the images of his family like puppets in order to rip him apart._

_"Laugh all you want, but I will end you. You should have just kept going when we came across each other. Now, why don't you show me your real face and stop hiding behind my brother?" Dean demanded._

_The laughter had stopped, but there was still an air of amusement in Sam's eyes and playing about his mouth. "It doesn't matter how I appear, boy, it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change the fact that you aren't wanted by anyone. Might as well hear it directly from the horse's mouth."_

_"You don't know anything. You may have caught me at a bad time, forced me to see things all wrong, and I even bought into it for a while, but I'm on to you now. I am wanted," he stated firmly, finding a new and fresh memory to latch onto, one that was clear and solid in his mind; Sammy telling him about the way he saw him. Maybe he had only said it to talk Dean down, but he still cared enough to bring Dean back. That's what mattered._

_The rathra shrugged. "Maybe for now. That's the funny thing about people and those pretty things like love and devotion. All that can so easily be forgotten when it's not convenient. I can see what your brother and father said to you. I'm sure it was all very sweet to listen to, but it's also fleeting. Will little Sammy remember all the sacrifices you've made for him and others the next time he doesn't get his way and blames you for it? Will your father remember to tell you how proud he is of you next time you complete a successful hunt, or will he just tell you what you did wrong?"_

_He had only been in direct confrontation with this thing for a matter of minutes, but it was already unerringly finding every chink in Dean's fragile armor. He was wondering that same thing. He'd heard a million apologies and excuses in his lifetime and had accepted them, tried to act like he believed it when they swore it wouldn't happen again, but it always did. Nothing ever really changed. Wasn't that exactly why he was in this mess in the first place?_

_Oh God, he was losing it. He had to fight, stay strong. Believe that they cared, needed him with them. Dad and Sam weren't perfect, no one was, of course they couldn't always avoid fighting and arguing and it wasn't fair for Dean to expect them to, but surely after this, it would get a little better._

_"They will remember," he insisted, disgusted by the desperate pleading he heard in his voice. He hadn't meant any of that to come through._

_It cocked his head in a gesture that was so Sammy, Dean felt tears spring to his eyes._

_"Sure, they may remember to treat you with kid gloves for a short time, but soon, your needs will fade out of their minds, replaced once again by their own. And the sad thing is, you will let them. You will allow them to push you aside and put you last in all things, even while you hold them paramount. You will make excuses for them, tell yourself that they mean well, that it's because Sam is young, because your father is a broken man after having lost his wife, but you will know the truth inside. You will know that they really don't care all that much because you allow them not to," it said, infusing Sam's young voice with a sly, pervasive quality that was digging right into the already bleeding parts of his soul._

_Dean wanted to deny it, wanted to scream that it was a liar, but everything it had said was true. He could feel that suffocating blanket of despair starting to cover that bright shining light Sam had lit back up in him, threatening to snuff it out. He knew that if that happened, he was done, so he fought to hold onto it, to keep Sam's words in his mind even though they were becoming unclear, almost changing into other words._

_It was already attacking him with that memory, something he thought would be safe since it was so new, but he was already doubting it. He really hated this thing._

_"It never changes how you feel about them," it continued, drawing closer. "It doesn't make any difference in how badly you need them in your life, even if they don't care. Because they are your life and you'll take whatever little tidbit they throw your way like some broken down old dog because you could never make it without them. Years of training, orders and duty made you into this, unable to see beyond them, and then they punish you for needing them more than air. Then when you reach out for help, they draw you in, tell you everything you need to hear, only to snatch it away once you get back to your normal, dependable, pitiful self. You really can't win, can you Dean?" it finished with something almost like sympathy._

_How was he supposed to fight the truth? He was stripped of every defense he had before this creature, all his masks shattered and broken around his feet, the dark place he buried everything he didn't want to think about laid bare and exposed to the savage glee of the taunting thing in front of him. How could he believe that Dad and Sam could really want something so pathetic like him dragging them down, following their every footstep? Sure, they had said they wanted him to get better, to come back to them, but why would they want him to? They didn't even want him around when he wasn't a whiny, depressed bitch._

_"They wouldn't say it if it wasn't true," he whispered to himself, an attempt to grasp at Sammy's words, to try and find a way to be the Dean he described. But he couldn't see that Dean in himself. He never could. It was winning and he was quickly seeing that he had nothing to fight with. Everything it was saying were the same things he thought all the time. It understood him in a way no one ever had and it was terrifying._

_"Of course they would," it said with a snort that was completely and one hundred percent Sammy. He really wished it would stop using his brother, it was getting harder to remember that it wasn't really his brother he was talking to. "They aren't monsters. They can see you're drowning, they aren't just going to watch it happen. It's not even like they really had to do anything. A few words here and there, and presto! You're back and trying to rebuild yourself into what they expect you to be. You just needed an excuse to keep going, even their sad lazy lifeline was enough for your pathetic little soul to think it still had a reason to stick around."_

_It was kneeling in front of him now, a hand, Sam's hand, resting on his knee, the one that was still wet with blood from a stab wound that was no longer there. Dean's head tilted down to stare into his little brother's hijacked face, feeling the wetness of tears tracking down his face. There was so much adoration and hunger in that gaze. It was horrible and comforting and wonderful and frightening. It wanted him. Not for anything good to be sure, but it honestly wanted him for him, every shattered bit of him._

_"I'm not saying anything you haven't said to yourself a million times, Dean. I know you, through and through, balls to bones, as they say. You don't need to hide from me. I think you are a beautiful tragedy, something wondrous and precious. You are bursting with the qualities that humans treasure; loyalty, bravery, strength, selflessness and yet you don't think you have a single redeeming quality. You despise yourself. And no matter what you do, how hard you try, you will never think any differently. You will find a reason to hate yourself as long as you live because you don' t think you are worth any regard, not even your own. You're a mess and you have no hope. How could anyone love you?" it asked with Sam's kind eyes boring into his._

_Dean's last weak defense crumbled then and his chin pressed into his chest as the hitch in his throat became a sob. He couldn't deny it, couldn't battle against it, because it spoke the truth. He was nothing and was worth even less. Something fundamental had been broken in him for a very long time and there was no repairing it. He could either try and limp along with those jagged, torn edges of his soul rubbing painfully together, remain a burden to his family, or he could finish this, stop the forced excursion through his heart and soul that was leaving his insides raw and bleeding._

_The ropes around his chest and hands were suddenly gone, his numbed limbs falling forward as they were released. A hand closed around his wrist, bringing it up to rest on his thigh. Something was pressed into his palm, and Dean looked down at it, immediately recognizing it as his knife, the one the ghost possessed Sam had used to cut him up. His startled eyes rose up to meet Sam's, the normal blue-green hazel faded into an unfamiliar silky gray._

_"Go ahead," it encouraged. "Do something right for once. Make yourself proud just one time."_

_Dean looked back down at the knife, seeing his distorted reflection in the shiny blade. This was really all he had left. What was the point in fighting fate?_

_There wasn't._

_His hand tightened on the grip of the knife._

###### 

"Dad?" Sam called out in panic.

John had stepped out to call Bobby again, but he was back in the room immediately. Sam was leaning over Dean, grasping his shoulders. He didn't see what the trouble was at first. For the first time in a while, Dean wasn't thrashing, his breathing wasn't coming out in tortured and uneven gasps. Then we he did see it, the phone fell out of his numbed hand.

Dean's eyes were open, but he was not awake. There was nothing there, they might have just been balls of glass. Tears were pouring from the corners, soaking the pillow below him. It was far too reminiscent of earlier and John was filled anew with fear and dread. Whatever was happening to Dean in there, it wasn't going well.

"He had been moving a little, mumbling, then he just stopped and this happened. Dad, what's happening? He won't wake up," Sam cried out, shaking Dean, whose head just bounced lifelessly with the movement.

John didn't want to say it, didn't even want to think it, but he felt that he had to prepare Sam. He wanted to scream, rail against the heavens for even thinking about taking something else from him, for taking his Dean, wanted to fall down to his knees and cry, but he had to do something he forgotten to do when Mary died; he had to think of his child. Maybe this wouldn't be happening if he had done that then, too.

"Sammy, it….," John faltered as the knot that was in his chest moved into his throat. He couldn't swallow past it, couldn't speak. His boy was dying right in front of him and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it.

"No," Sam whispered, his fingers clenching Dean's shoulders tighter until his knuckles were a mix of yellow and pink. "He's not going to die. He's not. He's too strong. I won't let him. You hear me, Dean?" he shouted into Dean's face. "You aren't allowed to do this! That thing isn't stronger than you, nothing is. Now you gank that son of a bitch and get back here! Do you hear me! That's an order, dammit!"

Dead, empty green eyes just continued to stare at nothing.

Sam slapped him then, Dean's head flinging to the side, a reddening line blooming on his cheek. "Wake up!" he screamed.

John had his arms wrapped around Sam before he even knew what he was doing, holding tighter as the boy struggled to escape him, shouted and demanded for release, punched his fists into tender places that John didn't even feel. He went limp without warning, sobs tearing out of like they were being ripped out of his throat.

"He can't die," Sam cried out, his voice thick with tears. "Do something, Dad, please. Just do something," he begged, burrowing his head even further into John's chest.

Bleakly, John stared over Sam's head to Dean, who was still lying completely still in the bed. He didn't have the heart to remind Sam that he couldn't, that their one shot of getting Dean back was currently catatonic once again. He didn't have the heart to tell him that he was starting to think they weren't getting him back this time.

###### 

TBC..


	11. Chapter 11

_I'm gonna suffer for the rest of my life_   
_But I will always find a way to survive_   
_I'm not a failure, but I know what it's like_   
_I can take it or leave it or die_

_"Sulfur" by Slipknot_

###### 

_  
_

_As his hand closed more firmly around the knife's handle, Dean felt something different than just the smooth wood against his index finger. A series of slight indentions, worn nearly away from the constant pressure of fingers against it. It didn't sink in right away what they were. The feeling against his skin was familiar, part of the knife, so it's not something he often thought about separate from it. It was his Dad's initials carved into the handle. There was something almost poetic about using this knife to kill himself, seeing as how he had used it to make his first kill. Now it would make his last one._

_He lifted the knife and turned it so it caught the flame bouncing around on the candle, flaring a sharp arc of light into his eyes. That stabbing brightness was enough to thinly pierce the darkness filling his head, giving him something to focus on that wasn't steering him towards suicide. It allowed him a moment to let the memory of how he got this knife to calm his chaotic mind, shoving aside all the images and sounds of his failures that been flipping by like a sadistic Rolodex. Now there was only silence and that memory, vivid and complete. In that space, he was able to breathe, regroup. He was able to find something he had lost._

_"My Dad gave me this," Dean observed softly, looking upon the knife in reflection. "He got it when he was just a kid." The rathra had stood and stepped back from him again, but Dean wasn't looking at it. He was just glad that it was no longer touching him. "He took me out hunting for a skinwalker. I was eleven. I wasn't even really backup, it was just to get my toes wet. I was really just supposed to stay in the car."_

_"Dean, why are you just delaying the inevitable?" it asked him in smarmy concern._

_"I heard him scream," Dean continued, completely ignoring the rathra, eyes still caught and transfixed by shine on the knife, thumb now stroking over the initials. He was lost in his own head now and for once, he wanted to stay there for a bit. "So I ran out to help him. Didn't think twice about it, just heard he was in trouble and started running."_

_"Do you really want to go back down memory lane, boy? It's not been the safest place for you." It was starting to sound annoyed now, and Dean felt a swift rush of satisfaction. It felt good after the desolation that had started to seize him again, forcing him to consider putting that knife in a vein._

_"The skinwalker was on top of him, just slashing at him with his claws. Dad was trying to push it off, but it had him pinned. There was so much blood, it was just flying everywhere and Dad was screaming. I was so scared and I just froze up. It was the shtriga all over again. But it only lasted a second. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I had Dad's knife, this knife, in my hand. He must have lost it during the struggle. I stabbed that skinwalker over and over again until it was long past dead. Dad had to stop me," he said barely above a whisper, afraid that speaking too loud would dissipate the moment. He was feeling again the terror that he was about to watch his father die and the frozen shock that had filled him when he had seen what he'd done, but it was a pale reflection of what it had felt like at the time._

_"Are you sure that's what happened? That you can trust your own memory?" the rathra asked, calm and cunning again._

_"Shut up and listen to me now," Dean growled, finally meeting its strange gray eyes again with a narrowed stare. He let the tension in his face relax as he returned to the memory. "I was so freaked out that I threw up all over Dad. Man, there aren't enough words to describe how dead I thought I was. First, I had disobeyed Dad and left the car. Second, I didn't even think to grab my gun when I saw what was happening and it was right in my waistband. Third, I barfed all over him. Not a shining moment. I was expecting him to chew me up one side and down the other, but he didn't. You know what he did?" he asked, continuing to stare the rathra down._

_Not allowing it to answer, Dean plowed on. "He hugged me and let me cry. Said I did a good job, that he he was proud of me. Now on the way home, he lit into me like I expected, but the next day he gave me this knife. He said I was a hunter now and I needed a hunter's knife, not my little pigsticker. And the way he looked at me…God I remember it even now." Dean's head fell back against the chair, a weary smile curving his lips. "It was like he was seeing something in me that was good, that was perfect. I felt right, like I had finally done something worthy."_

_"But it didn't last, did it?" the rathra jumped in. 'What was it, a couple of days before he went back to treating you like a well trained dog, barking out orders like you were a simpleton? A week before he left you alone to take care of your brother with too little money, his disappointment and blame coming across loud and clear the phone when you told him there wasn't enough. Eleven years old and he didn't care what you had to do to make up the shortfall as long as he didn't have to be bothered with it. That's what you're holding onto? You really think that's the way a parent treats a child they care about?" it sneered._

_"No," Dean said simply. "Not a normal parent, not a normal child. But we're different. Dad did that because he trusted me to handle it and I did. It wasn't always pretty, and yeah, I gave more than I got, but I accept that. Family means taking the good with the bad, it means hurting sometimes and not holding it against them, because you can't walk away from family."_

_"I think that's a one way street in the Winchester household, Dean. He walked away from you just fine when you were fighting that black dog," it reminded him shrewdly._

_That did hit Dean a little harder than he would have liked to admit. Dad had walked away from him, there was no denying that. He had seen it and it had torn him up, cut loose that last little lifeline he had been clinging to._

_"It hurt you so much that you just gave up. You were going to let that dog kill you, weren't you, Dean?" it asked, echoing the path his thoughts were starting to take._

_"No, it was because of what you did to me. You poisoned me, made me feel like this!" Dean shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the monster still taking on Sam's appearance. It was the only explanation. This thing was the reason he had been feeling like the world was not just ending, but fucking over, lately. It wasn't him, he was still the Dean Sammy described, he was. It's just that he was being attacked, poisoned. It wasn't him._

_It was laughing again, but this time it didn't sound like Sam's. It was something alien and foreign, so evil and rotten that it made Dean's stomach clench in reactionary fear and sickness. It was changing, Sam's form disappearing under a growing darkness, a vague shape of black smoke, two gray eyes glowing out of all that gloom. It seemed to suck in all the light, all the air, until Dean was gasping for breath. Dean felt a shiver of apprehension erupt over his body at the sight, but he was mostly relieved that it was no longer perverting his brother's image._

_"You and I didn't meet until after that attack, my dear boy." The voice was thin and light, almost as insubstantial as the form itself. It seemed like he was mostly hearing it in his head, the sinuous voice winding its way around the cracks and crevices in his brain like vapor. Its revelation poured inside, drowning Dean's rising defiance, once again exposing his weakness._

_"I came and visited you while you were laying there helpless in your bed, feeling so sorry for yourself. Why do you think I came to you in the first place? All that pain and despair, it was the most glorious taste on my tongue. I couldn't wait to swallow down everything you had to offer and there is so much," it sighed longingly._

_"No," Dean denied faintly, all the strength his memory had given him abandoning him abruptly, his head hanging down low, his eyes once again fixed on the knife still clenched in his hand. He didn't, he wouldn't. This thing was lying, it was just trying to trip him up, pull him back down so he would give it what it wanted. He knew he had been in a bad head space, knew that he had stopped fighting the dog, but it was because of the rathra. It had to be. He wouldn't have left his family like that, he wouldn't just give up._

_"Yes. That little suicide attempt? That was all you, Dean. You saw Daddy turn his back and just figured you would do everyone a favor and let the dog finish you off. Poor, unloved Dean. Couldn't take the subtle hints, had to wait until it was presented in neon flashing lights." It was all mocking sympathy now, taking vicious advantage of his uncertainty._

_It had moved closer, the dark, smoky tendrils only inches from wrapping around him. Dean jerked away, but found he was tied to the chair again, the knife gone from his hand like it had just vanished. Agony rose up within him at his movements, fresh blood starting to soak his skin. The wounds were all back and Dean knew what that meant. He was losing valuable ground, ground he couldn't afford to lose._

_"You didn't need me to see your true path, Dean. You've had yourself on death row for years, just going through the motions, waiting. You just finally decided to hit the switch. One last decision that would free you, free your family. Sammy's practically grown up, he doesn't need you anymore, which means your Dad doesn't either. Why not save yourself the pain of having them throw you away? Because they will and you know it. People don't keep broken things that have no use anymore," it stated, that black smoke starting to drift over his skin. It was cold and felt like ashes, but wasn't something he could grasp, couldn't fight physically._

_He couldn't think clearly, couldn't get enough air in his lungs, the pain in his body an inconvenience next to the agonizing defeat of that hole inside him that he had been trying to close ripping open again, more despair and resignation pouring inside. It was almost gone, that once robust beacon Sammy had left inside him, eradicated and reduced to the last pathetic flickerings of a dying flashlight._

_"You've fought a good fight, but you were always going to lose. No one escapes me. You are mine, Dean," it whispered._

_It was so close now that Dean could no longer see anything but the darkness that was its form, was breathing in the smoke and ash that made up its body. He couldn't move, was completely frozen in the chair, but there was something that had fired inside him that was helping him to find his center, think about something other than ending his pain._

_"No, I'm not yours. I belong to the two people out there that are waiting for me," he ground out, pulling futilely at his ropes again._

_The rathra reared back, allowing Dean to draw in a full, cleansing breath._

_"They aren't waiting for you. If you wake up, you wake up. If you don't, oh well. They don't care, Dean, no matter how much you want them to. You are by far the most pathetic creature I've ever come across, hanging on to where you aren't wanted. Come with me, Dean. I want you. I want you more than that sad example of a family ever could," it coaxed him._

_"It doesn't matter if they don't care. I do. That's been enough for me for fourteen years. It will be again," Dean replied with a shrug._

He could feel the weight of its stare on him, considering and contemplating. Then it was moving again, that hazy dark cloud starting to reach for him. He sat still and watched it come. He w _as worn out, both physically and mentally from trying to hold it together, and he felt like at any moment he would just crack wide open, blood and viscera flying everywhere. He couldn't attack in his usual fashion, no amount of physical brutality was going to free him from this thing. Dad had said he had to fight it with good emotions, feed it things it couldn't handle. Well, Dean didn't have much of those, but did have something, it had always been his to fall back on. He had forgotten it recently, had been foolish enough to flail against it, but in the end, he still had this._

_"Is that really all you have to fight me with, little hunter? Acceptance?" it scoffed derisively._

_"It's all I need."_

_Most might not think that acceptance could be a gift, a strength, Sammy probably hated that one trait of his most all, but it was the one that Dean treasured most. It kept him going, kept him looking forward, helped him store away the things that hurt him. It was why he was able to get up after being kicked by his family over and over again._

_He wasn't as complacent as he might appear. He knew his Dad was significantly lacking as a father, that he leaned on Dean for far too much, far too soon. He knew that Dad took for granted that Dean would always handle things without fuss, that he would manage to morph himself into whatever he needed to be at any given time. Dad spent so much time on the hunt and telling Dean to take care of Sammy, that he often forgot that he might want to care about Dean too. He never felt good enough for his Dad, never thought he measured up, no matter how hard he tried._

_He accepted it, though._

_Sam wasn't a little kid anymore, but he was still treated like one. Dean knew he both oppressed and coddled his little brother, that he had made him into the most important thing in his world, far too much pressure for a little kid. Sammy was testing his boundaries, trying to break past them, find his own place in their little family, while Dean did everything he could to keep the status quo. He just wanted to keep Sam safe, allow Sam to have more of a childhood than he did. But Sam didn't always understand that and, because he knew Dean so well, he knew exactly what to say and do to carve Dean's heart up. He would always apologize after and try to soften the blow, but the moment the words were said, it was already too late. Dean's greatest fear was that Sam would hate him someday, leave him alone, and every harsh word that spoke of how disappointed Sam was with him, burrowed into his soul to stay forever. Sometimes, nothing he did seemed to make Sam happy anymore._

_But he accepted it._

_Because at the end of it all, while he might sometimes almost choke on his resentment and anger towards his father's neglect and carelessness with his children, might want to shake Sammy until his teeth were rattling and tell him to stop changing the family dynamic and just accept things like he had, they were all the happiness he had in the world. Maybe he would always give more of himself than they would give to him, but that was okay because Dean did it to make himself happy. So he would know that he always did his best for them, no matter what happened. He wanted to be whatever they needed him to be, to try and give back what they gave to him. People always said they would die for their loved ones, but Dean had proven more than once that he truly would. Because living without one of them wasn't a life at all._

_"It's not going to be enough," it warned him, breaking into his thoughts. "It's still all wrapped up in all those delicious, darker things inside your head. I'm going to drink it all down, Dean, right down to your soul," it promised with bravado, but it almost sounded uneasy now, not as certain._

_"Maybe that won't be enough, but I have something else, too, something you won't like at all," Dean stated with a defiant smile. He was going to go full on chick flick moment, make Sammy proud. Dean almost wished Sam could see it, because he would never believe him if he told him about it later. If there was a later. This was his last stand. If this didn't get this thing off of him, he was done. He had nothing else to fight with._

_"I love Sammy. I love my Dad. And, even though I lost sight of this for a while, I screw up all the time and they still love me, too. They accept me for all my flaws, like I accept them. Do I think they take me for granted sometimes? Yes, but I'm not perfect. Hell, I'm about as far from perfect as a person can be. I know I've done things to hurt and disappoint them and they still stand by me. Sam's the best thing that ever happened to me. He's a gift, something I don't deserve, but I got it anyway. Dad still comes home to us after every hunt, he still trusts me to take care of everything, believes that I can do it, even though I've messed it all up a million times. We're family, we have each other's backs, something you could never understand," he explained softly._

_Something was happening with the rathra. The stronger Dean grew, his wounds fading away again, the ropes vanishing, the more transparent it seemed to become, the murky blackness thinning to a watery gray. Those unnatural eyes still glared out strongly from the mass, but they weren't filled with anticipatory glee anymore, there was only fear and confusion. Dean felt something like relief flood through him seeing some evidence that he was getting somewhere. Baring his soul was not exactly a typical battle tactic for him, he didn't really think it would work._

_Now it was time to push his advantage. He had the thing on the ropes, it was time to finish it._

_"They will leave you," it threatened desperately, trying to use his greatest fear to take him back down again. It wasn't going to work this time._

_Standing, he advanced on the shrinking mist. "Yeah, probably. And it's going to hurt. It's going to tear me up inside and send me on another downward spiral where I'll have to deal with these feelings all over again. Bright side? Thanks to this little melodrama, I'll have had some practice. But they aren't leaving today and I'm done talking to you about things that are none of your business. But since you seem so interested in why I'm holding on, let me show you," Dean offered bitingly._

_He opened up to it, let all the memories he had of Sammy and Dad, the ones that he treasured, to flood inside. Pushing Sammy on a swing, his little face full of smiles and laughter, telling Dean he was the best brother ever. Dad surprising him with a birthday cake right before midnight, a bare four minutes before it wouldn't have been his birthday anymore. He let the light, the gratitude, the love, fill him, mending all those little cracks that had formed inside him. He had cut these memories off from himself in his depression, had forgotten about them, convinced that he was nothing to his family. He had caused this, not Sam and Dad._

_"No!" it screeched, lunging for him. "You will not escape me!"_

_He could feel it trying to push those memories aside, trying to pull out and present instead the things that ate at his soul, that had made him vulnerable to the ratha in the first place, but he didn't let it. He rallied against that invasive presence in his head, bombarding it with those good things Dad had told him to use._

_Sammy's first word being "Dee", his chubby little hands smacking him on the chest while he smiled up at him with a toothless grin._

_Dad gripping him tightly on the shoulder, smiling proudly at him, when Dean had salted and burned his first ghost._

_Sammy in his school play, waving at Dean in the audience when he came on stage._

_Dad wrapping him up in his leather jacket that Dean had been coveting for years after he'd fallen in that frozen river going after a black dog, telling him he could keep it, that it looked better on him even though it was still a few sizes too big._

_Sitting on the couch watching movies with Sam, stuffing their faces with pizza and candy until they ended up falling asleep, Sam leaning against him._

_Hours in the Impala, awesome music blasting over the speakers, all three of the Winchesters singing "Back in Black" at the top of their lungs, even Sammy who claimed to hate it._

_They came faster and faster, just flashes, but bringing a peace and strength that Dean desperately needed. A thousand different memories, tiny and insignificant, pulled together to create an intricate tapestry of a family, of what Dean needed to live for. It reminded him that he was needed, that he was loved, even if he had forgotten that for a time._

_The rathra was choking, gagging, on all that sentiment, its hold in his mind growing smaller and smaller, along with its form. It was no longer struggling to take him back over, it was trying to retreat. Dean wasn't exactly sure how he was doing it, but he was holding it, pushing all the love he had for his family into it, forcing it to drink it down like it had forced him to relive his pain._

_"Don't seem to want everything I have to offer now, do you?" he mocked the now screeching thing, feeling his cockiest smirk twist his lips._

_It seemed to take the derision personally, the remnants of its form gathering together for one last dive at him, but the smoke and ash was so reduced that he barely even noticed. It was losing its hold here, maybe even dying. Those gray eyes stabbed into him, filled with hate and rage._

_"You may kill me, little hunter, but it won't change things for you. It doesn't fix you. You are broken, will always be broken. Happiness will never truly find you. Your life will just be endless pain and misery and that's all you will bring to those you love. So enjoy, Dean Winchester. Enjoy your travesty of a life and see how long it is before you take the way out I offered," it spat out, dimmed down to almost nothing now._

_Those words felt like both a curse and a portent of the future and there was no refuting them. He didn't see a bright happy path for the rest of his life. That had been taken from him when his mother had died, when his father turned to vengeance. He'd been raised as a hunter, bred to be a killer and that's all he could see himself ever being. That kind of life promised nothing but strife and grief, with very few shining moments._

_And he accepted it because he loved it. Saving people, hunting things…it was the family business. It was his business. Even after they finally got the thing that killed Mom, he couldn't imagine doing anything else._

_"That's probably all true," he acknowledged ruefully. "But as long as I can take out evil sons of bitches like you, I'll make my peace with it, best I can."_

_It gave out one last unearthly howl and was gone. Before Dean could react, he was gone too._

###### 

TBC..


	12. Chapter 12

_I'm not searching the sky for a reason to live_   
_Cause I found beauty right here and found the passion to give_   
_So let me give you my heart, let me give you my tears_   
_Let me give you my life, let me give you my fears_

_"Open Letter" by The Amity Affliction_  


###### 

Dean woke up gasping, feeling like he hadn't taken a breath in hours, his lungs burning and deflated. Gasping became coughing, the spasms wracking his body and reminding him of his assorted injuries. He sat up carefully to assist his laboring lungs, a hand coming to rest on his back to help him, then rubbing in soothing circles once he was upright. Dean forced his watering eyes open to see Sam hovering over him, anxious and hopeful as he tried to help ease the ache in Dean's chest. He was crying and Dean couldn't help the lance of guilt that pierced him over that.

Wait. He actually felt that, the familiar desire to take care of Sammy even though he was sore and wounded, his own injuries not important in the face of his little brother's pain.

He was back. He was okay. The flood of relief that filled him almost made him lightheaded

"Sammy," Dean breathed, his arms reaching out to pull his little brother to him. He needed to touch him, confirm that he was real, that he was here. He needed one last thing to wipe away the rathra's stain, to ground him to reality.

Sam started in surprise at the unusual gesture of affection, wrapping his own arms tightly around him. Dean's body protested the pressure on his various aches and pains, but Dean was so relieved, so elated to feel something other than the dragging desolation and worthlessness he'd been living with for the past few weeks, he barely noticed.

"Are you okay, Dean?" Sam asked, his voice muffled from where his face was buried in Dean's uninjured shoulder.

He was more than okay. He was tired beyond belief, hurting, and still felt like his mind had been fractured and sloppily pieced back together, but that didn't matter. He was Dean again, or at least well on the way. For a while there, he had been afraid he would never see his brother again. Holding him now, he was reminded about all the things he'd said to Sam under the influence of the rathra, and before, in his own depression, the things his brother had seen. He wasn't sure how he was going to ever make it up to him, putting Sam through all that, but he was going to start right now.

"Oh yeah, Sam, I'm just fine now. Thanks to you, man," Dean said, giving Sam one last squeeze before he released him.

Sam was trying to smile, but it kept collapsing, tears still pouring down his face. "I was so scared we were going to lose you, Dean," he said quietly.

"Nah, you're not gonna lose me. I'm too tough," he stated lightly, trying to ease down some of Sam's worry. He didn't fully remember all that had happened past his attempt to escape out the window, it was all bits and pieces floating around in his head and it was difficult to discern what was real and what wasn't, but it had to have been awful. Sam looked like he'd been put through the ringer, all big haunted eyes and unnaturally pale skin. At the very least, he had seen Dean well on his way to shoving a piece of mirror into his throat. Dean wanted nothing more than to take it all back, wipe it away from Sam's memory, but he couldn't. All he could do was try his hardest to be the big brother that Sammy expected, that he needed.

A movement over Sam's shoulder drew his attention. It was Dad. Dean was taken aback by his father's haggard appearance, his eyes rimmed red with dark circles underneath, strain settling into the lines of his face, making him appear years older than he was. He was smiling, but like Sam's, it was tight and trembling, like it was an effort to do so.

It was hard to see the visual evidence of what his breakdown had done to his family, the guilt was almost crushing in its weight, but it also helped him to see that they did care, that they had been worried about him, not apathetic about his plight like the rathra had said. It didn't excuse what he had done, and yes, he'd been infected by a rathra for part of it, but for right now, he fought to see the positive. He'd been too focused on the bad for too long and it had led him astray, made him forget his purpose in life.

"Hey Dean," Dad greeted him.

"Hi Dad," Dean replied, his eyes not quite meeting his Dad's gaze. He had seen Dean at his worst and he knew it would take a little time for him to forget that. He was mortified that he had broken down so completely and could only hope that Dad would give him the chance to earn back his trust. And if he could not ever mention any of this, that would be really cool, too.

"Did you kill it?" Dad asked.

"I'm not really sure. I know I hurt it and that its hold on me is gone, but I don't know if it's dead," Dean answered uncertainly, afraid that it was going to upset his Dad that it might have survived.

He wanted to be able to say positively that he had finished it, but there was no way to know. The fight had been in his head, it wasn't actually real. It had mentioned that he might kill it, but he didn't know for sure. There wasn't a body that he could see. All he might have managed to do was kill the connection between them, setting himself free. He could hear that hateful inner voice of his in his head starting to whisper about him failing, but he silenced it before it could get louder. He had done his best and he wanted some time, any amount of time, to not hate himself. He knew he couldn't keep it quiet forever, but just a little break would help him immensely right now.

"Well, dead or not, you did good. You came back," Dad said huskily, that smile finally firming up and staying put.

Dean returned that grin, finally lifting his eyes those last few centimeters to meet Dad's. "Thanks Dad." He had really needed to hear that, it felt like some of the shadows covering his heart evaporated.

"Hey Sammy? Why don't you go grab Dean something to eat? I bet he's starving. Then I'll get out of your hair and you boys can chat, all right?" Dad asked directing his gaze to Sam.

For once, Sam just nodded and with a relieved smile tossed Dean's way, he left the room to head to the kitchen. Dean was hungry enough to eat an entire buffet, but he knew why Sam was sent away. Dad had something to say. It was inevitable, but Dean had been hoping for more time. If Dad wanted to do it now, though, Dean owed it to him. He could only imagine what they had gone through watching him fall apart.

"How are you really doing Dean?" Dad asked solemnly, moving closer to Dean.

"I'm good, really. I'm seeing things a lot more clear now," he replied, not understanding why Dad winced when he said that.

"Are you? Do you still want to kill yourself?" he asked bluntly.

Hearing the words come out of Dad's mouth was like a slap in the face, a shocking reminder of how far gone he had been. There would be a reckoning, he knew that, and not just with Dad and Sam, but with himself. He had let himself sink so far, so deep, that it had made him weak enough for something to attack him. He had not only failed as a brother and a son, he had failed as a hunter.

"Can we save this for later?" Dean pleaded, hating the emotional crack in his voice.

"No, Dean. Not this time." There was no leeway given in that tone. Dad meant to talk this out. Dean wasn't going to give in so easy, though. He really wasn't ready. It was all still too fresh, too raw. He needed to let it heal a bit so he could frame it all appropriately.

"Come on, Dad, I've had a really bad day." Maybe Dad would hear the desperation he was trying so hard to hide and take pity on him.

"Letting you save it for a later that becomes never is why this happened, so we're talking about it now," Dad said firmly.

Or maybe not.

Dean sighed, resigned and nervous about heading down this road of questioning. "Okay, no, I don't want to kill myself. I was just having a few bad days and the rathra decided to take advantage and made it a lot worse. I'm really fine, it actually helped me to see what I have and set me straight," he explained in a rush, hoping it would provide his Dad with what he needed to hear. It was all basically true, just extremely abbreviated.

Dad just looked at him for a minute, with that special stare he had that seemed to look into every dark corner of your being, seeing what you had no intention of showing anyone. Right now, Dean had no dark corners anymore, they had all been blasted into the light by the rathra, so it was all on display, every awful bit of it. Dean hadn't yet had time to rebuild. So he wasn't sure what his Dad was seeing, he could only hope it wasn't too much.

"So what happened on the black dog hunt, that was the rathra?" Dad asked.

"Of course," he confirmed, looking Dad right in the eye.

Dean had to lie. If Dad knew even for a second that his soldier had broken down that badly, he would never trust him again. Dean was supposed to be the rock, the person that Sam and Dad could depend on implicitly and he had botched that royally. Even worse, he would probably be on suicide watch for some amount of time, constantly having eyes on him, being questioned, under suspicion. He wouldn't be able to deal with that. He had been able to patch himself together again, he would be back to normal soon and this would all be forgotten, chalked up as a successful run in with a supernatural being.

If he could blame that incident on the rathra, he was going to. There was no need for the truth, it would just hurt everyone and raise a lot of questions, and that's the last thing he wanted to do. He had hurt them enough. Besides, maybe the rathra had been lying, just another method to try and attack his fragile psyche.

Yeah, maybe.

Dad's eyes narrowed on him, something moving beneath that level stare that made Dean uneasy. Once he identified it, it took all Dean had to keep the panic from erupting.

Dad didn't believe him.

Dad really had no way of knowing when the rathra got Dean, but something had happened to make Dad doubt him. Dean wasn't sure what to do, if Dad pushed, he was going to break. He didn't have defenses right now, they were all gone. There was no way he could ever let Dad find out, Dean would take it to his grave if he were able, but he knew that if Dad wanted to, he could get Dean to spill it. Get him to share all those terrible and nasty thoughts that had made him so appealing to the rathra. He just didn't have the strength or mental clarity to dodge and weave a Dad inquisition right now.

All he had was the illusion that he was back and he had to be allowed to maintain that until he was able to make it real.

Dad's gaze softened and he shook his head sadly. "Of course. You know, though, if it hadn't been, that it would be okay? That I'm here to help you, even if it doesn't always seem like it? Because we can't lose you, Dean. I can't lose you," Dad's gentle, encouraging voice becoming harsh at the end.

Nodding dumbly in shock, Dean couldn't believe that Dad had let him get away with the blatant lie. He couldn't even speak, his relief and astonishment too strong to allow clear thought. He actually wanted to hug his Dad, thank him for letting it go, promise it would never happen again, but that would ruin their silent acceptance of the lie. So he didn't.

Dad sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Dean, I know I'm not always there for you and I know I lay a lot on your shoulders. I have for a very long time. I want you to know that you can always come to me if you need help, that it's okay to need help. I'm so used to you never asking for it that it doesn't always occur to me that you might just need me to offer it. You don't really ask anything for yourself, do you? I know that and I take it for granted that it means you don't need anything rather than you thinking it might make me think less of you."

Dean had no idea what to say to that. Dad wasn't wrong, he did refuse to ask for help unless it was an emergency so Dad didn't think he was weak or incapable of handling things. Dad had to be able to trust him so he could continue his hunt. He had enough on his mind, he didn't need to deal with Dean's issues too. It sounded like Dad was trying to blame himself for that and Dean didn't want him to.

"I know that, Dad. I know I can come to you," he reassured him.

"Yeah, but will you?" he asked sharply. Before Dean could say anything, Dad continued. "Because I'm home so much, right? And I always pick up the phone when I'm gone, don't I?" Dad added sarcastically with a bitter chuckle that appeared to be completely directed at himself.

Dean remained silent, unable to refute the truth in those words. Dad was gone more often than he was home. He could be impossible to get on the phone at times. Sometimes it sucked, but for the most part, Dean knew to expect it and he handled it. It's what he did.

As for talking to Dad? That would happen the fourteenth of Neveruary. Not because he didn't think Dad wouldn't care, or wouldn't want to hear it, but because Dean had an image to maintain; strong, unshakeable, capable. He wasn't sure how long it would be before he was able to get that image back, but once he did, he wasn't losing it again. So there was no need to talk to Dad. He would keep it under control, never let himself fall this far again. At the very least, he would make sure to keep it to himself until it passed.

"Well anyway, I'm glad you're okay. You uh…you really had us worried," Dad added, ending the awkward silence.

Shame faced, Dean looked back down at the sheets covering his legs and nodded. "I know and I'm sorry."

Dad shook his head. "No, Dean, nothing for you to be sorry for. You beat something that was supposed to be impossible to defeat and you did it all by yourself. I know it wasn't easy. I am so proud of you. You always make me proud. I know I don't say it enough, but don't ever forget that. I am so honored to have you as my son and my hunting partner. There's no one I want at my back more."

To say Dean was touched by those heartfelt words, would not have done the emotion filling him justice. Dean had been longing to hear Dad say that to him. It had been a while. Dean hadn't really done all that much to earn Dad's praise lately, but he didn't get the sense Dad was saying it just because he needed to hear it. He really seemed to mean it. And underneath it all, he could hear the 'I love you' that wasn't spoken, but was interlaced in every word.

"Right back at ya, Dad," was all he could manage to choke out, fearing he might cry if he aimed for more.

Dad reached down, his hand coming out to clasp around Dean's cheek, looking down at him like he was trying to memorize his face. There was so much emotion shining out of his eyes; love, fear, pride, sadness, that Dean felt the urge to look away. It was too much for him to handle right now, but he forced himself to look back, knowing his own bared soul was easily seen in his.

"I'm always here for you, Dean. Don't ever forget that," Dad said softly, his voice suspiciously thick.

Dean nodded, feeling some tears of his own stinging his eyes.

"All right, kiddo, I'll let you eat and rest," Dad started to turn away, when he paused and turned back. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, a sure sign that he was highly uncomfortable. Oh no, he wasn't actually going to try for the 'l' word was he?

"I know the rathra made you see things, twisted your memories up on you. I just wanted to make sure you knew that those….beatings…never happened. I never did that to you, I never would. I just want to make sure you still know that," Dad said earnestly.

Dean nodded immediately. "I know that, Dad. It got me messed up for a while, but I know what's real again."

Dad nodded and started to turn away again, but Dean stopped him this time, one last burning question he needed answered. "Dad? The night with the black dog? I looked for you when it was attacking me and it….it looked like you were walking away, leaving," he said uncertainly. He hadn't meant to bring it up, but he had to know what that happened.

Confusion spread across Dad's face and that right there was enough to lift that weight off of Dean's chest. It didn't even matter what he said at this point, it obviously hadn't been a deliberate act. Then understanding was dawning and Dad looked even sadder than he did before.

"I was looking for the duffel. I had lost my gun and if I tried to pull that thing off of you, it would have ripped your throat out. I'm sorry, Dean, it took me way too long to get to you. I should have just tried to distract it so maybe it would leave you and go for me, but I couldn't chance that it wouldn't. It was centimeters from your throat. I thought it would be best to get the gun. I made a mistake. I would never leave you like that, son," Dad explained solemnly.

He had been looking for the duffel to get a weapon. Dean had seen the gun get knocked out of Dad's hand. Of course he had to rearm before he helped him. Once a black dog got its jaws locked on you, it wasn't letting go until it wanted to or it was dead. Dean slumped back in the bed, fighting back the remorse and anger at himself that was starting to brew up. He had nearly dropped out because of what he thought he'd seen, what he concocted in his own mind. Looking back on it now, it was so clear, so obvious.

How did he ever let himself get so buried in self pity that he actually thought Dad was going to let him die? Never again, he swore right then and there. He knew he had bad days ahead of him, who didn't, but he would never let it get this bad again.

"Yeah, of course. I'm sorry, Dad, I don't know what I was thinking," Dean said dismissively.

Before Dad could reply, Sammy was back in the room, carrying a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk. Dean could feel his mouth start to water at the thought of getting the sandwiches in his mouth, but he would have really preferred a beer, or better, some whiskey, over the milk, but he wasn't turning anything down right now.

"I got you a bologna, a PB&J and a cheese sandwich. Didn't know which you would prefer," Sam said holding out the plate.

Dean took it, already reaching for the bologna.

"Don't keep him up too long, Sammy. I'm sure Dean needs some rest," Dad warned.

Sam nodded without looking at him, his wide, happy eyes still fixed on Dean, who was now groaning in pleasure as the first bit of food hit his stomach. He was pretty sure it had been months since he'd eaten.

"I'll see you later, Dean," Dad added, that soft, rarely seen look on his face again.

Dean waved the remnants of his sandwich in his direction, his mouth too full to say anything, but he tried to say it through his eyes; thank you for not giving up on me, for trusting me. Dad nodded, message received, and left the room. They weren't back on solid ground yet, and he knew Dad was going to be watching him like a hawk for a while, but Dean could handle it, because he knew it was because he cared, not because he didn't trust him. It made all the difference in the world. When Dean finally blew up and told him to knock it off, then they would all know he was back, one hundred percent.

Taking a big swig of milk, Dean sighed in satisfaction, feeling that empty pit in his stomach start to fill. "Thanks Sammy, you're the best."

"Am I?"

That question spoken in a downtrodden, sad little voice caught Dean's attention immediately. Sam looked like he was on the verge of tears again, his eyes fixed firmly on the plate of sandwiches, and nowhere near Dean's face. Dean knew what was going on, Sam was feeling guilty and responsible and he had to nip that in the bud right away. Sam was allowed to grow up, he was allowed to have bad days and lash out. It was his right as a person and it wasn't his fault that Dean took it all so personally.

"Yes, Sam, you really are. Nothing that happened here was your fault," Dean insisted. Sam did glance up at him then. "I was being attacked, it was making me take things the wrong way. It wasn't because of you. Hell, you saved me Sam. If you hadn't done your little greeting card routine with me, I wouldn't have pulled out of it enough to fight it off. So yeah, you really are the best, squirt."

Sam was full on staring at him then and it was almost eerie how old he could look sometimes, like he'd lived a million lives before this one, that he'd seen and done it all. Dean tensed up in reaction, automatically bracing for what Sam was going to say. It wouldn't be the first time he'd thrown a bomb at Dean when he got like this and it was always a doozy.

"It wasn't all the rathra, Dean." Dean stopped breathing. The bomb was nuclear this time. "You've been different for weeks. A person doesn't survive being poisoned by one of those things that long. A few days at most. So while I know all this really awful stuff was due to the rathra, the other stuff wasn't. You had to be feeling pretty bad for it to get you," Sam stated gravely.

Dean was already scrambling to mount a defense. Sometimes it wasn't in his favor that Sam knew him so well. This is what Dad had known too, what he had let Dean get away with. If he had ever been in need of his best line of bullshit, it was now, but it wasn't coming. He'd been forced to drag out his deepest feelings, mewling and flinching, into the light to fight that damn monster and they were still out, not even bandaged up yet. He managed to get around Dad because Dad was just as uncomfortable talking about this stuff as Dean was. Sam, though, Sam thrived on this shit.

"Don't lie to me, Dean," Sam warned, aware of all of Dean's tricks and evasive maneuvers. He was too damn observant for his own good. "Nothing will get fixed that way."

Dean sighed, his gaze dropping down to his hands, now clenched into fists in the sheet. He knew he was beat. Sam wasn't going to let this go. He really didn't want to do this now, but Dad had been right. He stowed so much baggage in his head, all the emotional wounds, that it had become too much for him to handle. He thought he had an endless capacity for dealing with shit, but if nothing else, this had shown him even he had his limit.

Sam wanted to help. Why not let him? Even if it did go against everything he believed about maintaining a front for Sammy so he had someone he could always depend on without fail. Maybe he could open up just enough to satisfy them both.

"I just had a few bad days, Sammy," Dean started hesitantly, trying to pick his words carefully. "A lot of things have been changing and I'm not adjusting to it fast enough. You're growing up, you don't need me watching out for you so much. It's just...hard sometimes. I used to know my place and now it's different. I'll figure it out, Sam, I know that, but for a while there, it just got away from me. And then that thing got me and it was just overwhelming, everything was too much and I couldn't deal with it."

There was silence for a moment and it drew on long enough that Dean finally looked at Sam. His little brother looked so sad and Dean crumpled inside. He hadn't meant to make Sam feel any worse about what happened than he already did, but he failed. He could feel that familiar, overwhelming sensation of disappointment in himself, that despite all his efforts, he was never going to make things better. It was more than he could stand right now on the heels of everything else and his mind turned to flight, because he simply couldn't fight.

"Dean, I'm never not going to need you, no matter how old I get," Sam said softly, curtailing Dean's almost manic need to escape. "I know I get mad and say things that hurt you, but I really don't mean to. I just get so frustrated and my mouth takes over. I'm angry, all the time lately, and I don't know what to do with it. I get what you're saying, things are changing, I'm changing, and I know I cause more problems than I solve, but you have to know that I will always, always, have your back."

The death grip Dean's teeth had on his lip to keep himself from tearing up again was starting to fail.

"We're brothers, Dean, family. That means I'm here for you, too. You don't have to keep everything to yourself. You're allowed to sad, angry, depressed, hurt. Despite how bad you smell sometimes, you are human," Sam added lightly with a little grin that Dean returned. "You don't have to be strong all the time."

"Yeah, I do Sammy. It's my job," Dean argued.

Sam's brows lowered in irritation. "That's Dad talking, not you."

"No, Sam, it's me," Dean insisted. This was the basis of their greatest disagreement. Did Dad instill this overwhelming urge to protect Sam at all costs? Yes he did, but whether Sam believed it or not, Dean did have his own mind and he would refute it if he wanted to. He just happened to agree with Dad on that directive. The thing that killed Mom had been in Sam's nursery, not Dean's. Sammy was the one that was in danger, not Dad, not Dean.

"You are all I got, Sam. If something happened to you…" Dean turned away, needed a moment to pull it back in, all the emotions even the thought of losing Sam brought up. He swallowed it down, fought for composure and was grateful when the tears didn't spill over. Man, he really had to toughen up again, quick. Every five seconds he thought he was about to cry. "I will keep you safe, Sam, no matter what that takes. Even if you don't want me to, because I can't do anything else. And that means I have to be strong, I have to be ready," Dean explained simply, truthfully.

Sam nudged at him with his shoulder and Dean scooted over so he could join him on the bed. They both stared ahead of them, Sam's eyes on his feet, Dean's on his knees. It wasn't an awkward silence, they were too comfortable around each other for that, but it was loaded with possibility. Dean was tense with anticipation of what Sam was going to say next, scared that Sam was going to start an argument or get angry that Dean had no intention of letting up on his guardian duties. He was equally afraid that Sam was going to start bawling and accusing Dean of trying to leave him.

"I've said this to you before, Dean, but you always seem to forget it," Sam said wearily, but there was something else there too, something more like fond exasperation. "So I'll just keep saying it so maybe it will sink in someday. You're all I got, too. I mean, I know we have Dad and I love him, I really do, but we're a team. We've survived in spite of him, not because of him. It's been because of you, Dean. You're the one that's always here, making sure that we're okay, it's always been you. You're kind of my everything, you know? The only thing I really want is for you to see me as an equal so that I can help share the load. I'm not a kid anymore, Dean."

He could feel the weight of Sam's gaze on him now, and he couldn't deny the unspoken command to look at him. Sam looked so serious and determined, but for all that, Dean could still only see that round little baby that he used to feed bottles to, the little five year old that would follow him around everywhere, the ten year old kid that took to wearing the same type of clothes as Dean because he wanted to be just like him.

And it wasn't fair to Sam, because he wasn't that kid anymore. He was rapidly becoming a man. Despite Dean's best efforts, Sam was growing up far faster than he wanted him to.

Maybe if Sam had a little space, some room to grow into the man he was becoming, he would stop being so angry all the time. Perhaps he could even find some common ground with Dad, some understanding. If the fights stopped, or at least reduced, then that would help Dean, too. He would stop being terrified that his family was falling apart, could try to relax and find himself again.

But if Sam thought he could ever offer him an equal partnership? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. Dean could try for sixty/forty though. Well, maybe seventy/thirty.

"I know you're not, Sam. I forget a lot, but I do know that and I'll try, okay? I'm gonna tell you now, though, if it comes down to me or you in the shit, it's going to always be me. You can get as pissed as you want, that's the way it is and will always be. Got it?" Dean warned.

Instead of getting upset, Sam just smiled that dimpled grin, his hair falling over his forehead as he cocked his head. "Yeah, we'll see. Dad is positive I'm going to be taller than you, so your days of standing in front of me are running out," he teased.

Dean could have almost hugged his little brother again, he was so grateful that he hadn't fought him on it, but he figured he had freaked the kid out enough today. Instead, he ruffled his hair and said, "That's never gonna happen, shrimp."

They quietly split the rest of the sandwiches, the mood much lighter than it had been before. Dean could tell Sam still had something to say, but was working up to it, so he just chewed and waited, enjoying the tight feeling caused by stress and tension in his chest easing. He was so tired his eyes hurt, but he would stay awake as long as needed to make sure Sammy was okay. Whatever Sam needed to make sure Dean wasn't going to ever try to pull what he had done in that bathroom, he would do.

"If you died, I think I would, too, Dean," Sam finally said, barely over a whisper.

The remains of Dean's sandwich hit the plate, his suddenly heaving stomach unable to handle another bite. The thoughts that had run through his head while beneath that black dog came back to him, and he had actually thought that Sam would be glad to get rid of him. Looking back on it now, Dean couldn't understand how he could think that. How he could ever decide to leave his brother alone. A cold finger walked its way up his spine at the thought. There aren't words for how messed up he'd been.

"Don't say that, Sam," Dean ordered, not able to bear even hearing it.

Sam just shrugged. "It's true, though. Every time something happens to almost take you away from me, I feel it. Like I didn't just almost lose you, I almost lost me too. Because living without you? I can't even imagine it, I don't want to. So when you're jumping in to keep me from getting hurt, can you just remember that and try not to get yourself hurt, either? For me?" Sam pleaded, using his big eyes to look like the most forlorn person to ever walk the earth. It had never failed to work on Dean and this would be no exception.

"I'll try, Sammy, but what I said stands. You or me? Always me," Dean pledged. That he could get behind. It's not like he ever went out intending to get hurt, it just kind of happened.

"And will you promise to talk to me if things get bad for you again? Before some evil thing uses it against you?" Sam added hastily.

"You're pushing it, Sam," Dean cautioned, trying to inject a lightness into it, but he failed. That was one thing he couldn't promise. He had let Sam see him weak and broken down once, it was now his new goal in life to never let him see that again. If Sam had even an inkling how fucked up he was inside, he would never trust him to take care of him again.

"Yeah, I thought that was going to be too much to ask. Worth a shot, though," Sam sighed.

The dejected line of Sam's shoulders was enough to stoke up his big brother instincts that, despite the weeks of ignoring them, were still in tip top shape. After all, if he had found a way to articulate how hard things had gotten for him, he wouldn't be in this mess now.

"I can't promise, Sam, but I will try. Best I can do, little man," Dean offered.

"Your best is always good enough for me, Dean," he said, bumping Dean's shoulder.

"Thanks Sammy," Dean replied, tossing an around Sam's shoulders and tugging him close for a quick hug.

"So we ready to end this little tear jerker movie of the week?" Sam asked with an excellent imitation of Dean's pained intonation, an eye roll borrowed directly from Dean and a crooked smile all his own.

Dean laughed then, a good, hearty cleansing laugh that seemed to brush away the last remnants of the rathra's poison, of his own uncertainty about his worth to his family. He knew without a single doubt that his inner voice, the worst critic he had would soon be back, but for now, he was content to drown it out with the laughter of two brothers that meant the world to each other.

When Dean Winchester broke inside, he never thought it would be seen by the naked eye. He had no intention of asking for help, he didn't want anyone to see. He didn't change anything about his outside appearance or try to find ways to paint his pain inside into his skin with blood and steel.

He thought he was keeping it to himself, that no one would notice. That he would just drift away, without a single person giving a damn.

In the end, though, the right ones did see it in time.

The people he loved, protected and treasured above all things, showed him that they felt the same about him. They enabled him to save himself from the darkness. It was more than he could have hoped for.

They showed him that Dean was needed and that's all he ever wanted.

###### 

_The End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
